Read Into My Soul
by BrittzandTana
Summary: It's understandable for Emily to have trust issues when it comes to Alison, what with all that's happened. Now, though, Alison is determined to convince Emily that she doesn't want to lie anymore. Maybe with the help of an old journal, she can finally tell Emily the truth. EMISON FIC! EMILY/ALISON ! M for mild themes&scenes! Sort of canon :P EMISON IS ENDGAME! :* Starts after 5x05!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi there! Okay okay, deep breath... Welcome to my 2nd real Emison fic... :D Let's lay down some stuff...**

**First of all, if you don't know me, Hi! I'm Tana! I've written two other Emison things, one was an AU story, the other a PLL 100 One Shot :P**

**This is going to be my first canon Emison story. It starts around 5x05 and continues on... I'm going to do my best to include as much A and other drama things that happen in the show in this story as well. I might not keep this all exactly aligned to the PLL episodes, of course, but I'll try to kind of stay around the same things hopefully.**

**Now, if you haven't read any of my stories before, here are some helpful things to know!**

**Italics are thoughts/flashbacks/dreams, and in this story, journal entries.**

**Bolds are texts/emails/signs etc etc...**

**This story is going to be in 1st person. It'll probably stay strictly to Emily and Alison POV, but I may throw some others in there. Sometimes, a chapter will be strictly one POV, or sometimes it'll switch. When it does switch, it'll be signified by something like _EEE_ or _AAA_. (For anyone who reads my newer Dantana stories, we're going back to LMLY/NLMG style haha ;P)**

**Right now, I'm only a chapter ahead of this. I may get a little further ahead so that I'm more comfortable, but basically, I'm always ahead of where you're reading. Therefore, if you suggest ideas and such, they may not always be able to be incorporated.**

**I'll try to update as often as possible. I have 2 Dantana stories and 1 Quinntana story also as WIPs on this site, so it's hard to balance between updating all of them... Updates should also stay around 2k words or so. Some will be longer, some a teeny bit shorter. Oh and by the way, you should at least get an update once a week, assuming I don't get writer's block.**

**Furthermore, I would just like to say that while the amount of review I get has no affect on my update speed, I do very much appreciate them. I give shoutouts to every 50th reviewer. Aka, 50th reviewer gets a shoutout, 100th, 150th... etc etc :)**

**I think that's it for my pre-story rambling... I hope you'll like this :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

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"Emily, you okay?" Hanna asked me, giving me one of her concerned looks. I blinked and nodded that I was fine. The next look she gave me told me that she didn't believe me for a second. "Seriously, what is up with you, Em? You've been totally acting strange all day!"

"I'm fine," I insisted, shaking my head at my friend. "I just have a lot going on."

"Yeah, we all have a lot going on," Hanna reminded me. I gave her a look that I hoped sent the message that I wanted to drop this topic.

"What about this one?" came Alison's voice as she stepped out of the dressing room behind us. Hanna and I turned around to look at the outfit Ali was trying on.

"It's cute," Hanna announced, and I agreed only with a nod. Ali's eyes lingered on me for a moment, and then she smiled at Hanna.

"Good, I think I'll get it," she decided, before slipping back into the dressing room to change. I released a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. Hanna raised an eyebrow at me, and I just shook my head. I didn't want to talk about this, at least not with Hanna.

Alison had asked me to come with her to help her finish shopping for new outfits, but once Hanna had heard of the shopping trip, she insisted that she come along. I wasn't going to be the one to object, because I didn't think that any one on one time between me and Ali was going to be very enjoyable at the moment. Ali hadn't objected either, but I had a sneaking suspicion that she would've much rather hadn't had Hanna along.

Alison had me so confused at this point. Two days, she told me that all of the kisses we shared, before she "died" and when she pulled me out of the barn, weren't just practice. She told me that my feelings for her hadn't ever been completely one sided.

And then when I slept over at her place, she told me that I was the hardest for her to leave behind. We kissed too, that night. It was better than any other kiss I'd ever shared with her, mostly because it lasted more than half a second. In fact, it lasted a pretty decent amount of time, enough time to make my lips swollen.

Nothing else had happened, though. We'd both stopped it, in a way, like both of us knew that we weren't ready to do something like that. I mean, I'd dreamed about for years, but now it just didn't feel right. Not when I still felt like I had no idea where I stood with Ali, even after her admissions.

Yesterday, we didn't speak a word of what had gone down the previous day. We found out that Ali had lied to us about slapping Mona, and she spent a good hour or so with me in my bedroom trying to convince me to forgive her. She tried to get a kiss out of me too, and I still wasn't sure if it was going to be a for real kiss, or a kiss to get out of me being mad at her.

All four of us stopped really being mad at her, though, when the News came on to tell us that the girl buried in Ali's grave had been identified. After the shocking news, when there were eight of us squished in my living room, Toby's house next door exploded.

_"__Ah!" came all of our screams as we flew forward, the sound of the explosion deafening us for a moment. Alison was still squeezing my hand, which I had to admit felt good, but she released it as we jumped up with everyone else._

_"__Is everyone okay?" Spencer exclaimed._

_"__What the hell was that?" Hanna demanded. We all exchanged concerned looks, and then we ran to my front door, ignoring the glass shattered on the floor. Once outside, we saw that Toby's house was clearly on fire._

_"__Toby… your house," Spencer muttered, her voice laced with fear. After another moment of silence, someone else spoke up._

_It was Caleb. Why he was here, I wasn't sure. "Is anyone in there?"_

_Toby, taking initiative, ran toward the raging flames and smoke. Spencer let out a strangled scream as he did, but Aria grabbed her arm to keep her from running after him. We all held our breath, and in the distance, I could hear the blaring of sirens._

_Then suddenly, all of our phones beeped and rang, giving us all a very unpleasant knowledge. We all exchanged knowing looks, and slowly retrieved our phones. Aria was the one to read out the message. "Did you miss me, bitches?"_

_Just as she finished talking, another explosion rang out as more glass from Toby's house flew out from the windows, we all screamed and stumbled backward. Alison grabbed my arm and we shared looks of concern._

_The police came and asked us about the incident, while firemen went into the house. Most of us didn't have much trouble giving our answers, and I personally made sure that Alison didn't lie at all. Spencer, however, couldn't stop sobbing and asking the police and the firemen about Toby. They brought him out on a stretcher, saying that he was injured but that they should be able to keep him stable once they got him to the hospital._

_We all went to the hospital with Spencer to support her, and once she found out that Toby was in stable condition, she insisted that we could all go home. We received no answers or details about the explosion from the police, though._

"Emily!" Hanna and Ali snapped, as Hanna waved her hand in front of my face. "What the hell is up with you?"

"I'm sorry. I was thinking about the explosion," I admitted, crossing my arms tightly over my chest.

"There's nothing we can do until the police tell us what exactly happened," Alison reminded me. "There's no point in thinking about it over and over."

"Of course there is, Ali! A blew up Toby's house!"

"Okay, we don't know for sure that it was A," Hanna said.

I gave her an incredulous look. "Are you kidding, Hanna? We got a text from A right before the house blew up for a second time!"

In a hushed, but angry, voice, Hanna hissed at me, "A is _dead_, Emily!"

"Guys, come on," Ali interrupted, giving us both nervous looks before she started off toward the cash register. Hanna and I followed her, and both of us caught each other looking around nervously, as if A might be spying on us right now. After Ali paid for her outfit, we left the mall completely, walking out into the parking lot. Ali and I had come in the same car, and Hanna in a her own car.

We were all silent as we headed toward them. Finally, Ali asked, "Can you guys come over?"

"Sure," I answered, having nothing better to do and hoping that Hanna would say that she could too.

"I can't," Hanna answered. "Sorry. I told Travis that I'd finally help him finish our project."

"Looks like it's just you and me, Em," Ali commented, giving me a soft smile that I did my best to return.

We both got into my car and I started our drive back to Ali's place. Now that I'd already agreed to coming over to her house, I couldn't rightly get out of it. I would just have to put up with this tension that didn't seem to want to go away.

Throughout the whole day of school earlier, I had done my best to not hang around any of my best friends, including Ali. I'd hung out with Paige and Sydney. It was easier to forget about all of the drama about A and Alison when I was with them. Plus, Paige and I were starting to get closer again. I wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that though.

"Em, are you okay?" Ali asked me. I blinked and zoned out of my autopilot, thanking whatever was out there that I hadn't crashed us.

"I'm fine," I flat out lied.

"Don't give me that, Emily," Ali commanded in the voice that used to be oh so intimidating to me. She let out a quick sigh afterward, though, as if realizing that she'd used that voice.

"I'm fine," I repeated.

"Come on, Em. _You_ hate it when _I _lie," Alison reminded me, giving me a pointed look. I gave her a quick sideways glance and they refocused my eyes on the road. We were nearing her house.

"Yeah, but you still do it," I pointed out.

Ali let out a light breath. "Point taken." There was a moment of hesitation. "I'll stop lying to you, Em."

I felt a little bad when I rolled my eyes. "Ali, you feed off of lies."

Ali pursed her lips together, and I tried to ignore the guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was only the truth. Ali loved to lie and she loved to see what she could get out of them. "Maybe, but I am changing you know."

"What about all of that stuff you said to Mona? Sure sounded like fifteen year old Ali," I recalled.

"I underestimated her. I thought that I could scare her into not messing with me. Clearly I was wrong. Emily, I promise I'm not like that anymore," Alison insisted.

"Well, you're still lying to the four of us, so as far as I can see, you actually are," I stated.

"Fine. I'm still a heartless bitch," Alison said, conceding. "Clearly nothing is going to change your mind. But you're not fine, and I want to know what's wrong so I can help you."

I pulled up in front of Ali's car, noting that her dad's car wasn't there. "What's wrong is that I _don't_ know what's real and what's fake with you, Ali, and it's so damn frustrating!" I exclaimed, turning to face her over the center console.

Ali lowered her gaze for a minute and then met my eyes again. "I wasn't lying to you two days ago, Emily."

"How do I know _that_ wasn't a lie?" I demanded.

"Emily—"

"It doesn't matter, Alison," I muttered. "Maybe we can hang out some other time."

Ali leaned back away from me a little bit. "Yeah, maybe," she agreed in a half hearted sort of way. She sure sounded like she was being honest about all of this, but then again, she sounded pretty honest when she told the cops that she was held hostage and blindfolded for two years.

She opened the passenger side door and slipped out, grabbing her bag of clothes as she did. Then she closed it without another word and headed up to her front door. I tried not to stare after her, I really did, but I couldn't help it. That was a force of habit, I guess.

I drove down the street to my house and pulled my car into the driveway. My mom was home, but she wasn't around when I walked inside, so I just went upstairs to my room. I needed some time to think and relax. Not that anyone could really relax around here. There was police tape surrounding Toby's house, and the mystery of who blew up the house was still standing.

Plus, I was once again terrified of my phone. A was back, and none of us had any idea who it was. We knew that Shana was dead— Aria wouldn't ever let us doubt it for a second. So who had taken over for Shana? Obviously, A had been Mona at one point, but would she so willingly take back that post? She was pretty good at ruining our lives as regular Mona as it was.

I searched my mind for anyone who would've wanted our lives to continue to be ruined. Honestly, I couldn't think of anyone who would hate us that much. Sure, Ali had done some pretty terrible stuff, but the rest of us hadn't really been half bad before all of this A stuff happened.

My phone started ringing, and my heart jumped into my throat when I heard it. Taking a shaky breath, I grabbed the device. It was just Hanna. "Hey, Han, what's up?"

"You with Ali? She's not picking up," Hanna told me.

"I— uh, no, I'm not. Something came up, I just dropped her off," I answered.

"Well do you think you could walk over there and tell her to pick up her damn phone?" Hanna asked.

"I can't Hanna," I snapped, and then I hung up. I didn't want to walk past Toby's house, for one, and I didn't want to see Alison right now. Actually, I _couldn't_ see Alison right now. Obviously, my feelings for her were still there. Maybe even more so than before she "died". Maybe back then, small, weak Emily would've jumped at this chance to possibly be with Alison. But now, strong, brave Emily wasn't about to put herself in that kind of vulnerable position. It would take a lot of effort on Alison's part to convince me that she even ever liked me at all.

It wasn't like she would go through all that effort, though. I was almost positive that she wasn't. She just wasn't that kind of person.

I shook my head and let myself fall back against my pillow. I closed my eyes and tried to block out everything going on.

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**So that's just the start... :) The next chapter is in all Ali's POV, that way we can get a basic understanding of where both girls are right now :) After that, I'll start switching and stuff!**

**Like it? Hate it? Let me know in a quick little review if you don't mind :) If you don't like to review, you're welcome to PM me of course :) Also, you can follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana as well :) Tweet me that you read this story and I'll follow you back :) I need to follow more Emison shippers anyway :D Also, if you're a guest, I tweet the link to every update right after I update ;D**

**It's getting late, and I think I'm finally going to go work out some, so I better go... :P Tell me what you guys thought! **

**Goodnight beautifuls! Please review =D *heart***


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: There's no POV switch in this chapter, because the last chapter was Emily's beginning chapter and this one is Ali's beginning chapter. Chapter 3, however, does have a switch, and most chapters will, but not all of them.**

**Also just a side note, after watching PLL last night, I realized that I like in no way can predict what the hell is gonna happen every week on PLL, so I really won't be able to match up everything that happens, obviously. However, I'm going to try and incorporate all of the Emison moments from the show, as they come, into this story :) Obvs I will also be adding my own :P You'll see what I mean in the next chapter :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

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I was laying face down on my bed, contemplating what to do about my crazy, messed up, shit pile of a life that I'd come back to, when my phone rang for the billionth time. Huffing, I finally rolled over and grabbed the thing, answering it without looking at the caller.

"What?" I demanded.

"Chill, Ali," came Hanna's voice at the other end of the line.

"What do you want, Hanna? I thought you were doing school work with Travis," I stated, already bored of this conversation.

"Yeah, well, he canceled. I just called to tell you that my mom said there was an update about that girl," Hanna explained, "the one who died."

I bit my bottom lip nervously. I didn't like the topic of the dead girl in my grave. I didn't like that everyone thought she was me and now it seemed like a lot of people decided that she had died _instead_ of me. That was the worst part, that they all thing that I _could've_ died instead of her. The thing was, it was probably the truth. Whoever had set out to kill me all that time ago had to kill somebody when he or she was sure that I wasn't coming back. But even when the common townsperson had no idea about all of that, they still wish I'd died instead of that poor girl.

Sometimes I wondered if maybe that would've been easier for everyone.

"What'd they say?" I asked finally. I was a little surprised that Hanna hadn't already started talking about it, but I figured that she understood how this was a touchy subject.

"Well, they released some pictures. She's nothing special. Blond, though, and she was about the same height as you," Hanna explained, sounding as though she was looking at the pictures as she talked.

"Is that all?" I wondered, my voice quiet.

"Yeah, I guess," Hanna answered. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I assured her.

"Ugh, you and Emily are both doing that today," Hanna muttered. "Is something going on between the two of you, by the way?"

I tried not to scowl. "No, Hanna, I promise you that there's nothing going on between us."

"Okay, but you know that you can tell me if there is. I won't judge," Hanna reminded me.

"Yeah, I know, but there's nothing," I insisted. _Wait, is that a lie?_ I bit my lip as I contemplated it. There wasn't anything going on between us right now, but… "Well, actually, Han…"

"Yeah?"

"I told Emily that when I used to tease her about liking me, back before all of this stuff, her feelings toward me weren't always one sided," I admitted. If I was going to be more honest now, why wait?

"Aw!" Hanna cooed, and I narrowed my eyes, rolling them at the other blonde.

"Emily doesn't believe me," I stated, affectively cutting off her cooing.

"Why not? Isn't that like what she's always wanted to hear?" Hanna asked.

I shrugged, and then realized that she wouldn't be able to see it over the phone. "She said that she doesn't know if she can trust me."

"Oh," Hanna said, sounding as though she could understand where Emily was coming from. I tried not to scowl and glare into the empty air.

"Do you believe me?" I asked. Silence. "C'mon, Han," I pushed.

"Look, Ali, you did a lot of bad stuff to all of us. It's kind of hard to blame Emily for not believing you," Hanna admitted.

"Okay yeah, but do _you_ believe me?" I demanded to know.

"I have to go, Ali, talk later!" Hanna exclaimed, and the line ended. I groaned and fell back against my pillow. Why didn't anyone believe me? Would none of them ever believe a thing I say again?

I sighed, sitting up and getting up off of my bed. Laying around and acting like I was depressed wasn't the solution. I decided to put away the new clothes I'd bought at the mall, but that was finished within five minutes, and I found myself without anything to do.

I paced across my room for a few minutes, and then my eyes caught on the bottom drawer of my desk that was next to the door. I hadn't really ever thought of that thing in a while, the only locked drawer on the desk. I had a few journals in there, ones I hadn't ever wanted anyone to find. I know that my friends thought they'd access to the most important ones, but in some ways, they never did.

There was a picture frame set up on the desk, and in the back, under the part that you removed to put in the picture, was the key to the drawer. It was wedged tightly between the picture and the frame. I took it out and then proceeded to unlock the drawer.

There were five journals squeezed into the drawer. None of them were labeled, but I knew which one I wanted right now by the way the pages were more worn. I pursed my lips as I retrieved the journal from the drawer. I left the thing unlocked for now, because I would likely seal this journal back in there. I didn't want anyone to see it.

I opened the book carefully and took a deep breath. The pages were a little wrinkled from all of the use. Actually, this journal hadn't stayed in this drawer while I was gone. No, this was one of the few things I happened to have with me when I ran away, and I was so grateful about that.

The first page read, in very careful handwriting, "Emily".

I swallowed thickly. Emily might not believe what I told her was true, but it actually was. I wasn't sure about my feelings for Emily now, just like she wasn't sure of hers toward me now. But I definitely had feelings for her years before.

I flipped through some of the pages, and stopped on one that had dry tears stained on it. There were a ton of scribbled words covering the left page, feelings and thoughts. I couldn't remember when exactly I'd written it.

The sigh I let out next was a little shaky, and I closed the journal. I had written in it while I was on the run, too. Just little notes and things, feelings really. Feelings I had thought were completely gone by now. But seeing Emily again—and not from a distance—and talking to her… it was bringing all of my feelings back. I wasn't sure I liked this. I wasn't scared of liking Emily… or maybe I was.

I bit my lip, and went to slide the journal back into its drawer. Then I locked said drawer and hid my key back in my picture frame. I couldn't read all of the things I had once written, or it would bring back a surge of memories I'd tried to forget. Good ones, bad ones.

My phone beeped from where it was laying over on my bed, and I made my way over to it, hoping to whatever was out there that it wasn't this new, mysterious A. Luckily, it wasn't. It wasn't who I wanted it to be from either, though. Just Spencer, with an update on Toby's condition.

**From Spencer- Toby's doing better. They're keeping him in a medically induced coma for tonight, and they'll wake him up tomorrow and keep him under observation for a little while.**

I replied with a quick message of support and then went to my other text message conversations on my phone. I hadn't texted Emily much since I got back, mostly because she hadn't really seemed like she even wanted me back until two days ago. Now, though, we seemed back to square one.

Finally, I decided to text Emily.

**To Emily- Hey, can we please talk?**

There was no response, but it also hadn't told me that Emily had read my message either. I sighed and set my phone down. Just as I did so, it beeped. But this time, it wasn't any of my friends.

**From Blocked ID- Is your favorite puppet finally losing interest? I know everyone else is. Everyone wants you gone. –A**

I swallowed thickly. It felt like the year before I ran away all over again, only worse, because all four of my best friends were sucked into this mess. Was this all my fault? What if I had just died like I was supposed to?

**To Emily- Please? I really think we need to talk.**

Still no response. I looked back a the text I'd gotten from A and shook my head. I couldn't let A weasel its way into my mind. A would do anything to make me doubt myself and my friends. He or she would do anything to drive me out of Rosewood again. Whoever this was, it was definitely someone who wasn't at all happy with my return from the dead.

I gave up on texting Emily, because she clearly had no interest in talking to me at the moment. I wish she could just understand that I wasn't lying to her, not this time around. I needed her to trust me, because I couldn't lose her. That would be the last thing I wanted. My past feelings for her aside, she really had always been my favorite of our friend group. She really listened to things I had to say, and she could joke around with me.

She had always seemed like the only person who really got me, and I told her so once. Now, she probably thought that me saying that was a lie as well. Did she think it all was a lie? Did she think that I was just one big lie?

By the time I fell asleep that night, I had gone back and forth with all of my conflicted emotions and thoughts over and over again. I was truly very tired.

The next morning found me getting ready for my third day back at school. Pretty much everyone there hated me now, after that video that Mona edited. I couldn't believe that everyone believed it. It was so obviously edited.

I touched up the last bit of my makeup right before I left, and then I left my house after saying a quick goodbye to my dad. It was weird living with just him. I missed my mom, a lot. But I wasn't one to show a lot of weakness, so I put on my best "I don't have a care in the world" face and started toward the school.

Spencer met up with me when I was halfway to the school. "Hey, Ali," she greeted.

"Hey," I answered, glancing at her face. She looked tired. "Didn't sleep much?"

"It's just so weird, me and my mom not living with my dad," she admitted. I nodded with a little bit of understanding. "What about you?"

I shrugged. "I have a lot going on."

"You know you can talk to us," Spencer reminded me. "All of us. We want you to be okay, Ali."

I gave her a serious look. "How can any of us be okay, Spencer? A is still out there, or at least another A. We don't know if this will ever stop, Spence."

"Hey, I haven't wasted two years of my life trying to figure this all out to give up. We're all going to figure this out, I swear. We figured out Mona and Shana. This will be over, Ali," Spencer promised me. I gave her a half hearted smile.

"I hope you're right, Spencer. For all of us."

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**I hope you all liked this chapter as much as you liked the first one. I think they're hopefully going to get better though, so yay :)**

**Like it? Love it? Hate it with a passion? :P Let me know in a quick review, or PM me if reviewing isn't you thaaaang :P Also please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana :D Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back :D By the way, LOVED the response I got to this fic! So glad you like it!**

**Time for me to say random stuff! Haha if any of you guys read LMLY... well, one time when I was writing it, I set an alarm for 9AM on a weekend and labeled it "UPDATE LMLY" because FF hadn't been working the night before and I didn't want to forget to update it. I still use the alarm all the time, especially now that it's summer and waking up at 9 is like early for me. But I haven't changed the label on it, and so it still goes off every morning and it's like "UPDATE LMLY" and I'm like lol I would if I could :P**

**Okay! Next up on today's FF Line-up! SOWK, one of my Dantana stories, should be updated within the next couple of hours or so, unless I get interrupted with something like food lol. But it'll definitely be up today :)**

**Have a great day lovelies! Please review :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: In this chapter, you'll see what I meant when I said that I'm going to tie basic things in with the episodes, as well as the Emison moments, but I'm not going to try to keep all of my A stuff nearly exactly the same. :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

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"Have you talked to Ali, lately?" Spencer asked the three of us.

"Em and I hung out with her yesterday," Hanna answered, and I nodded in agreement. "Why?"

"I think she's really worried about A," Spencer answered.

"Has she gotten any others texts that we haven't?" Aria questioned.

Spencer shrugged. "She didn't say, but she's acting like she thinks we're never going to be able to get out of all of this."

"Well, should we talk to her about it?" Aria asked. "I know she's been dealing with A for a lot longer than we have, but we've been doing it together all of this time. We've learned to get past the initial fear, haven't we?"

I shook my head. "We learned to get over the initial fear when it was Mona, maybe even when it was Shana. We have no idea who this is now, and whoever it is just blew up Toby's house, so I think we're playing with someone else here."

"I thought everything around here was going to start getting normal again," Hanna muttered.

"Hey guys, what are we talking about?" Ali asked, suddenly approaching us all.

"How life sucks," Spencer answered. It was the end of the school day, and we were all standing outside of the school.

"Yeah, we probably all need to get our minds off of all of this shit. Can any of you guys hang out?" Ali asked, and she looked specifically me. I avoided eye contact.

"I don't think so," I answered.

"Spencer and I are going to Radley," Aria said.

"Why?" I demanded.

"Bethany Young, the girl who was buried instead of Alison, was a patient there. We're going to see what we can dig up," Spencer explained.

Ali nodded and looked to Hanna. "I can't. I really need to work on this project with Travis, and—"

"If you're going to see Caleb, Han, you can tell us," Ali interrupted. Hanna scowled, and everyone was quiet for a moment.

I finally spoke up. "I've gotta go. See you all later." I started off toward the parking lot, and heard the rest of the group behind me breaking apart. I heard feet go in different directions, and then footsteps right next to me. I looked to my right to see Alison. I wasn't surprised. "I can't hang out."

"I know," Ali answered, "but are you going home? Can I get a ride?"

"Sure," I agreed, sighing slightly. She followed me to my car and got in the passenger side. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I asked her, "How are you holding up? Spencer said that you're worried about A."

Alison gave me a bit of an alarmed glance. "I just… I don't know what A wants."

"What do you mean?" I asked carefully.

"I got a text," she answered slowly.

"What did it say?" I asked, a little bit impatient now.

She took a small breath. "It said that everyone was losing interest in me and wanted me gone. Specifically, you four."

I gave the blonde a sideways glance. "That's crazy. We just got you back, we don't want you gone."

"Em, why did you tell me that you thought I should leave Rosewood before?" Ali asked. I shook my head.

"I didn't actually want you to, Ali. Paige told me that Mona was planning on making your life a living hell, and I didn't want you to go through that," I explained.

"I've been through living hell, Emily," Alison reminded me. "Anyway, it sounded like you wanted me gone then. And I'm pretty sure that Hanna isn't ecstatic about me being back. I'd imagine that Spencer has got some qualms as well. Aria, too. I did so much shit to all of you."

I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Finally, I managed to get out, "Yeah, but, you were still always there for us, in your own way."

"Well it clearly wasn't good enough," Ali muttered. I began to feel a little guilty about avoiding her. She was going through a lot of stuff, and all of the feelings between us aside, I should've at least been there for her yesterday.

"Why don't you come over?" I suggested, trying to get rid of my guilt.

"Thanks," Alison said, giving me a half smile. I returned it, but then locked my eyes back on the road. We were just coming up to my house, and I pulled carefully up into the driveway. We got out and headed inside, bypassing the whole of my house and going straight up to my room.

When we got there, I decided that we were going to talk about A and about Alison's concerns that no one wanted her here. "Ali," I started, "if A is trying to make you think that none of us want you here, he or she is doing it specifically to make you want to leave. You can't listen to those texts you get."

"I know," Alison agreed, nodding. "I don't want to admit this to the other girls, but I'm actually really scared about what A is capable of. I know I was out of the full blast of it all when it started for all of you, but did ever notice how A started out small and just seems to get bigger? Now A blew up a house that we were practically right next to."

I nodded. "I know, it is a pretty daunting thought. But as long as we all stick together, we'll be fine."

Alison took a shaky breath. "If you say so. Hey, can I stay over tonight, please? My dad is going to be out really late."

I hesitated for a few seconds. Last time we had a sleepover, we hadn't just slept.

"Please Em, we'll just sleep, I promise," Ali insisted.

I nodded. "Yeah, of course you can sleep over."

We decided to watch movies to try to get all of the A stuff going on out of our heads. We turned my TV so that we could watch the movies from the bed instead of the window seat. We didn't talk or kiss or anything, and I was a little grateful for that. I still wasn't exactly sure where I was supposed to be with Ali. I didn't seem to have a problem trusting Ali except for when it came to feelings. It was understandable, since she had played with my feelings for a pretty long amount of time.

On the other hand, I had always thought that when she said things like I was her favorite, or that she wanted to go to France with me, things like that, I thought that she was just saying them to mess with my feelings. Had she really always meant those things? It would make sense now, since she told me that she did after all have feelings for me. I thought about asking her, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to bring up that topic.

When the last movie ended, I lent Ali some sweats and a tank, and then we both got changed, facing away from one another to avoid things being too awkward. In the past, neither of us would've cared about changing in front of each other. Hell, we used to stand completely naked in front of each other after we showered in the locker room for swim.

Now, though, after we'd kissed like _that_ in a _bed_, it seemed like a new unspoken rule was for us to not look at each other without clothes anymore. Once we were both changed, I flipped off the lights and we climbed under the covers of my bed.

As we laid there, I knew that I would not be able to sleep. At least not until I talked to Ali, even though I'd just told myself earlier that we weren't going to bring this topic up. I couldn't help it.

"Ali?" I whispered, hoping that she was awake.

"Yes?" she asked back, and she sounded just as awake as I felt.

"When you used to tell me all that stuff… like I was the only one who really understood you, or how you wanted to go to France with me forever," I started, trailing off a little bit.

"Did I mean it?" Ali asked, wondering if that's what I was trying to ask.

"Yeah," I breathed out, before biting my lip hard. I knew what I wanted her to say, but I was worried that she wasn't going to say it.

"Every word," Alison promised, saying each word with emphasis, like she wanted me to know that she _wasn't_ lying, not this time.

_AAA_

I took a deep breath after I said that, because I was starting to feel a little anxious. Emily was finally asking me about this, but I didn't know if she would believe me or not. And I didn't know if her knowing that stuff would actually make us any closer to talking about what we felt for each other _now_.

"Why did you want me to think that you never liked me?" Emily wondered.

"I was scared. Not to mention that I was also a bitch," I answered. As badly as I felt like I should lie to answer some of these questions, I knew that I couldn't. Not to Emily. I'd promised both her and myself that I wouldn't lie to her anymore. I planned on sticking that promise.

"What were you so afraid of?" Emily whispered.

"I don't know, but I'm still a little afraid of it," I admitted, also whispering.

We were both silent for a moment, and I began to feel a little uncomfortable, not knowing what Emily was thinking. "Thank you," she finally said, "for answering me honestly."

"Of course," I said, before readjusting my sleeping position a little bit and closing my eyes. Suddenly, I felt really tired, and my eyelids dropped down over my eyes. I sure hoped that Emily wasn't asking anything else, because I was out of it in a few seconds, falling asleep.

I woke up to Emily's school alarm with a groan. It was my fourth day back at school today, but the idea of going to that place was still giving me a twisted feeling in my stomach. I'd rather just stay home all day.

I woke Emily up with a nudge, and she groaned as well, reaching over to her side table and shutting off her alarm. "I'll get ready and we can stop by your place before we go to school so you can get ready."

"Well I have everything I need here, except for a change of clothes," I admitted. So we took turns in the bathroom and did our hair and makeup and got ready to go. After Emily was dressed, we got in her car with our school stuff and she drove first down the street to my house. I got out, telling her that I would only be gone a minute, and hurried inside.

The house was dark, so I guessed that my dad had already left for work again. I just went straight upstairs and changed into a cute outfit, adding a yellow scarf as well. Once I was sure that I looked amazing and would have Emily swooning, I headed back downstairs.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, the darkness around me started to feel a little eerie. I swallowed thickly and started toward the front door, freezing in place only when I heard a noise somewhere off to my right. I couldn't see anything, but it was really dark.

Suddenly, something hard slammed into my back, and I let out groan of pain as I fell forward. Whoever had swung the thing dropped it carelessly, and it knocked something else over, causing a loud clanging noise.

I thought the person was going to leave, but he or she grabbed my scarf and pulled me up, before using the thing to choke me. I was pretty sure that nearly my entire life had flashed before my eyes before I heard someone else run into the room.

This new someone attacked whoever was attacking me, and I fell onto the ground, gasping for air. I barely heard what was going on around me as I took in gulps of air. I didn't know what was even happening until Emily had me wrapped in her arms on the floor. "It's okay," she whispered, and I clung to her as a few tears left my eyes. "It's okay."

We stayed there until I could breathe properly again, and then Emily led me outside and back to her car. Instead of heading to school, though, she turned around and brought me back to her place. "Where are going?" I choked out.

"We're not going to school today," Emily declared.

"But then people will know that's something happened," I argued. Emily shook her head, telling me that I couldn't argue my way out of this. I sighed. "I guess I can just tell them that I was really missing my mom today."

Emily's mom had left the house since we left, so we were the only ones in the house as Emily led me upstairs and to her room. "Should I get the other girls?" Emily asked me.

I nodded. "Might as well."

She sent out a text—probably an SOS text—and then set her phone down. "Are you okay?"

I swallowed carefully and forced a nod. "I'm fine."

Emily gave me a look that told me that she knew I was most definitely not fine.

"If we're not going to school today, I'm going to sleep until the girls get here, okay?" I decided.

"Of course," Emily agreed with a nod. I laid down on her bed and closed my eyes. Forcing the images of my dark house out of my mind, I let myself fall asleep.

* * *

**You saw what I mean? I wanted everything with Emison that happened in the last episode to happen in my story, but I had to adapt it for the story, you know? :)**

**Like ittt? Love ittt? Hate ittt? Leave me a quick review and tell me what you thought! If that's not your cup of tea, you are welcome to PM me instead, or as well :) Also, follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! :) By the way to anyone on Twitter who got tweeted by Sasha last night, congrats :) I didn't, but you know, you can't expect her to see and answer every tweet :)**

**So, probably no story updates tomorrow. My older sister, brother in law, and two of my nephews are coming down tonight from where they live, and they're staying with us all day tomorrow. Normally I would still have time to update, but I'm also having a nerd movie day with some friends tomorrow while my family is here. So after my friends leave, I'm back to helping with babies and hanging with the fam :) Hopefully some updates on Sunday, and if I'm feeling like they'll happen, I'll post my update schedule on Twitter.**

**I think I'm gonna start doing that. Before I write every day, I'll tweet and say what stories I plan on updating that day and in what order. I did it today and I felt like quite a few people saw it. Handy idea eh? :P**

**When school starts by the way, I may only be able to update one story per day. That means that I may have to set up a specific schedule again, like an order. CD, RIMS, SOWK, IDDA, something like that. Or maybe I'll just have to decide depending on what I'm feeling for the day. And actually, CD will probably be over by the time school starts again. .**

**Okay, time for something random! The song Shake It Out by Florence+TheMachine... well I've always been obsessed with the Glee version bc Naya and Amber and Jenna and yeah *heart eyes* and it always made me feel better when I was sad. Anyway, then I heard the original version, and I love them both equally, but the original is just like... it gives me chills and makes me feel like I'm floating. Kind of like Never Let Me Go, also by F+TM... if you haven't heard her stuff, go listennnnn! If you've read WDCT or NLMG then you've seen the lyrics to Never Let Me Go, but omg listen to it and Shake It Out. PERFECTION. :)**

**Okay, I'm done wasting your time :) Have a great day my loves! I may have to go sneak a snack before dinner, I'm soo hungry haha :) Please review c:**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Good news! In the last two hours, I managed a 3,000 word chapter (chapter 5) for this story. The best part of that news is that I didn't check how long it was the whole time I was writing it, which basically means that stuff for this story is coming really easy for me, which means much better updates for you :) Chapter 5 is actually my favorite chapter so far, but anyway, here is chapter four :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Wait, so someone really tried to kill you?" Aria demanded.

"That, or just scare me really bad," Ali answered, swallowing visibly, and shaking her head. "I don't know for sure, though. Emily got inside in time to keep any possibility of me dying out of the question."

She gave me a grateful smile, and I returned it with a smile of my own. I personally was still a little bit terrified after what had happened earlier. By this point, I wasn't sure that I wanted to let Ali out of my sight at all.

"What does A want?" Spencer asked, sounding exasperated. "Does he or she want you dead, alive, in Rosewood, out of Rosewood? Can't _it_ make up its mind?"

Ali shrugged. "I have no idea, but this is exactly why I didn't want to come back to Rosewood in the first place."

"Well you can't leave now," I said, maybe a little too quickly. "Everyone is keeping tabs on you, and you can bet that A is doing it the most. Whatever A has planned for you, or any of us, he or she isn't going to be letting us run off anytime soon."

"Emily's right," Hanna agreed, nodding.

"Yeah, you can't leave," Aria said. "Plus, we just got you back. And we're not going to let A take you away, and we're not going to let _you_ take yourself away."

"A almost got me this time. How can you be sure that he won't do it again?" Ali snapped.

"We just can't let you be alone," Hanna stated, getting nods from the rest of us, besides Ali.

"That's crazy," Alison argued, shaking her head.

"Why? Haven't you had two sleepovers with Emily in the last few nights?" Spencer pointed out, and Ali and I immediately exchanged concerned looks, like we didn't understand why Spencer was bringing this up. "Your dad doesn't seem to care if you're out as long as you're with someone. So don't go anywhere alone. We'll take turns with who sleeps over with you or who you sleep over with."

"Sounds like a good enough plan," Aria agreed.

"I still don't think its necessary," Alison argued.

I shook my head at the blonde. "C'mon Ali, you have to admit that it'll feel safer to be with someone else."

Ali's eyes met mine, and I swallowed thickly, averting my eyes. "I guess," Ali decided, looking at the other girls.

"Okay, so you stayed with Emily last night. You can stay with me tonight," Hanna decided. Alison just nodded in response.

"Good, so this is all settled," Spencer stated, sounding relieved. "I can't believe that A tried to kill you."

"Are you really that surprised, Spencer?" Ali snapped. "A's done it before. Multiple times, to all of us. We've all just been really lucky. But one day all of our luck is going to run out, and we're going to be helpless."

We all exchanged concerned looks. Ali was right, A had tried to kill us all before. Someone had just always been there to save us, or A hadn't tried necessarily hard enough. Something told me, though, that A was maybe just trying to show us, even still, that it was possible for him or her to kill us. That if we did the wrong thing, he or she could do it.

I hoped that I never had to find out if A was really capable of taking one of our lives.

"I don't think you want to go to school, huh?" Aria asked Ali carefully.

"Well showing up late might just draw more attention than if I don't show up at all. Same goes for all of you. Those people want to find anything that I do that might make me somehow even more bad than I used to be. And Mona and her freak army or whatever is still out there. And we have no idea how many people are in that team," Ali reminded us.

I cleared my throat. "I'm going to talk to Paige today and see if she can get me a list of all of those people. I know that she hates you, but I think that she'll eventually give in."

Alison nodded, but her lips turned down into a frown. "Careful. I don't trust Paige."

"I don't either," I admitted. Sure, I trusted her more than say Mona, but after she told the cops that Alison was alive, I wouldn't be able to ever completely trust her again. Alison nodded and looked around at the other girls.

"I'll take Ali over to my place," Hanna said. "You guys go to school."

Spencer, Aria and I nodded and got up to leave. "See you, Ali," we all said quickly to Alison, who gave us all smiles. The one she gave to me was more of a grateful one, like the ones she kept giving me all morning after I saved her. Even though they were sort of just a thank you, they kept making my heart beat faster, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"What's going on between you and Ali?" Aria asked me as we walked outside and toward our cars.

"Nothing," I answered, giving Aria as weird of a look that I could muster up on short notice.

Aria gave me a look that said "Don't try to lie to me". I sighed. "I don't even know yet, okay?"

"Have you guys like… talked about stuff like that at all?" Aria wondered.

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter. How can I really believe anything she says anymore?"

"Emily, she might've lied to us a lot. But you of all people should be able to admit to the fact that Alison had definitely changed since she got back. She may have snapped at Mona, but she hasn't really snapped at any of us like that since she got back," Aria reminded me. "Don't forget that. Okay? I'll see you in English."

_AAA_

"Alright, Alison," Hanna said, as soon as we entered her kitchen, "what is going on between you and Emily? You were holding onto her hand for dear life when we were watching the News. And now that I'm thinking back, you were doing the same thing when we saw you in New York. Also, you keep giving her these weird looks."

I huffed. Of course Hanna wanted to call first shift on this new Ali Watch thing so that she could interrogate me on me and Emily. "Nothing is going on, Hanna."

"Maybe not at this exact moment," Hanna agreed, "but clearly, something is happening there."

"Look, I already told you what happened," I snapped.

"Yeah, and I think that you're still keeping something from me about it," Hanna argued. "Ali, I'm not the same quiet, scared girl that I was two years ago. You can't just lie and keep stuff from me anymore. Or any of us."

I sighed. "I know. You've all grown up so much since I left. Sometimes, I'm actually happy that I left, because I would've kept you all from becoming your own person. I really wasn't a very great friend to any of you. But I want to change that, I do, but I don't want to talk about Emily, okay?"

"Well that in itself has me dying to know more," Hanna pleaded. "Come on, did you kiss her?" I couldn't help but roll my eyes, because that was one of my defense mechanisms, and Hanna could probably tell. "Oh my gosh! You did, didn't you?"

"Well if I'm being completely honest, she kissed me first," I muttered.

"But you kissed her back!" Hanna exclaimed, grinning like a fool. "That is so sweet!"

I set my jaw as I met her eyes. "Don't tell anyone about this, okay? And I'm not saying that because it's some secret that I think will keep us close, so don't freak out. I literally have no idea what's going to happen, and I don't want a bunch of people to find out what happened and make some big story out of it, okay?"

"I understand," Hanna agreed, nodding, but there was something weird about her expression.

"What?" I demanded.

"You know that I'm not going to tell anyone, but how are you going to shut A up? That bitch knows everything," Hanna reminded me.

"I know," I agreed with a nod. "But as it's been pointed out to me this morning, there's really no way to me to stop A from doing anything."

"Have you gotten any more texts?" Hanna asked me nervously.

"Just one, yesterday. A is trying to make me think that you girls don't want me here," I explained. "Which makes me think that A wants me gone, but then why was A trying so hard to find me before? I really just don't know what to think."

"We'll figure it out," Hanna promised, "eventually."

I sighed. "Eventually. Hey, Han, can you take me to my house? You can come in with me… I just need to grab something from my room."

"Sure," Hanna agreed, grabbing her keys. A few minutes later, we were in front of my house. She got out with me and we both went into my house, carefully making our way upstairs. When we got to my room, I retrieved the key to my drawer, not being discreet at all. "Whoa, what's that for?"

I didn't answer as I squatted down in front of the drawer and unlocked it. I pulled out all of the journals. I glanced in all of them. Two of them only had a few things written down, and another two were filled with things just like the journal that my friends had found in Ravenswood. This one, though, didn't have special code names. I decided to leave those and the two blank ones in the locked drawer, and hide the key somewhere new. Maybe I'd keep it with me. But I kept the Emily journal with me. Maybe reading some of the old entries and things would help me figure out what exactly I was feeling.

"What's that?" Hanna asked.

"Just a journal that I took with me when I left," I explained. "At the time, it wasn't locked up. I had it hidden somewhere else, and I picked it up before I left Rosewood completely. After Mona sent me off."

"Why that one?" Hanna asked.

"It's personal," I stated. "Don't worry. It's not about all of your secrets this time."

Hanna just nodded, and we left my room, going back downstairs and outside and getting into Hanna's car. I would have to wait a little while, maybe until Hanna was doing homework or something, before I could read it. I didn't want her to see what was in it.

_EEE_

"Paige," I said, walking into the girls locker room after school was over. I knew I'd find her there, getting ready for swim practice.

"Oh, hey Emily," she greeted, giving me a smile. I returned it with just a half smile.

"I need a favor," I stated. She looked at me warily, like she knew what I was going to ask. "I need a list of the people working with Mona."

Paige shook her head. "I can't. I told you, I'm not going to rat them out."

"_Paige_," I growled, "Ali almost _died_. And I'm not talking about when she disappeared, I'm talking about this week."

"What, the explosion? She wasn't even in there," Paige stated.

"I know, but my whole window blew in from it," I snapped, "and Ali was there."

"They said it was a gas leak, anyway," Paige stated.

I narrowed my eyes. "Paige, someone is trying to hurt Alison. If it's Mona's Anti-Ali club, I need to know who they are. I know that you're trying to be impartial and all because you hate Ali. Trust me, I _know_ that you hate Alison. But still, how would you feel about yourself if you knew that there was something you could've done to save her from _dying_, and you didn't do it?"

Paige just stared at me.

"I don't know about you, but I would feel pretty bad. Whether it was Ali, you, or someone else entirely," I added.

"Fine. I don't know the names of everyone in there, but I do know that Lucas was in there, and Melissa," Paige stated.

"Melissa?" I demanded.

"Hastings," Paige confirmed, nodding. "Besides them and Mona, I don't know everyone's names. I'll tell you if I find out, but I really don't know. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Thank you so much," I said, turning away and starting out of the locker room.

"Hey, Em!" Paige called. "Does this win me trust points back?"

I turned around to face Paige and let out sigh through my nose. "I don't know, Paige." And then I left. I wasn't going to hang around and listen to Paige's apologies again and again. I was tired of hearing them.

Now that I had the names, I had to get to Hanna's house before A or Team Mona came after with me with pitch forks and knives.

* * *

**Go awaaaay Paaaaige!**

**Likeee? Loveeeee? Hateeeeeeee? Please let me know in a quick review, or if that's not your thing, you can always PM me :) ALSO, if you follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**So recently, I've accepted an A theory. I usually never find any that I find believable, but I have accepted one now, and I may try to implement it into this story :) But I'm not telling you what it is ;)**

**Ahh PLL is on Tuesday and i'm sooooo excited. I have a school thing though that could take all day, and I don't know if I'll be back in time to watch PLL when it comes on at 7 :S I'm gonna record it, so it won't be a huge problem if I do miss it, but it means I won't be on Twitter until I do watch it. Hopefully my school thing will end before seven though.**

**The school thing is for this thing I'm helping with. It's like a camp, HS intro thing for incoming freshman at my high school. Tuesday is our training day for it, where we basically get a feel and a run down for what we're doing. The actual thing is actually this weekend... and you know what that means :( No updates this weekend.**

**But that's not our concern right now! Our concern is this week, and hopefully you'll get at least one more update from this story this week ;) CD and SOWK should each get a couple of updates as well. IDDA is going slower, I hit a bit of a block for Quinntana last week, so I have to do a little brainstorming before I can get another chapter up!**

**Anyway! I've gotta get my sleep schedule a little bit under control... I have to be up at 6 or 7 on Tuesday, and same with Sat/Sun... so I've gotta keep myself on a go to bed by midnight schedule until its over.**

**So goodnight beautifuls! Oh speaking of that, you're all beautiful and amazing! :D Please review ;)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: In my opinion, this is the best chapter of this story yet! :) I hope you guys like it, and I hope that you'll review if you do. I got lots on the first chapter and have been getting less since then. I'm just worried that people don't like it as much now :S**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Hanna, someone's knocking on the door," I said from across the room. We were both doing the makeup work that Spencer had taken the liberty of bringing us when school ended. "Make sure you check who it is before you answer."

"Paranoid much?" Hanna asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I glared at her; she knew perfectly well why I could afford to be paranoid. "I'll be right back." She disappeared out the door of her room, and I stayed glued to her desk chair. I felt a little bad for the idea of "better her than me" that was running through my head, but I didn't have anything to be worried about. She appeared back less than a minute later, with Emily in tow. I tried not to get too excited when I saw the brunette.

"Hey," I greeted, and she returned it with a hasty nod.

"Paige gave me two names," she stated, getting straight to the point, as though she thought something would happen to her before she could tell us the names.

"Only two?" Hanna demanded.

"She said she didn't know the other people's names," Emily answered.

Hanna rolled her eyes. "And you believe her? Okay, Paige _hates_ Ali, and she already told you that she wasn't ratting anyone out! So why now would she suddenly give you names, and why only two?"

"I really don't think she's lying, Han," Emily insisted. "I know what she did and what she thinks of Ali, but she wouldn't lie to me."

I swallowed silently and bit my tongue. Maybe that Pigskin was going to be more a problem than I thought she would be. Especially if Emily still liked her. She had just said earlier that she didn't trust her, not entirely anyway. But would she get back with that bitch?

"Whatever," I said, shaking it off. "What names did she give?"

"Lucas, for one," Emily answered, looking pointedly at Hanna, who nodded as if she weren't surprised. "And… Melissa."

"Some people never change," I muttered, shaking my head. "We should probably call Aria and Spencer."

"Aria's at Radley. Apparently, she's got an internship there or something. She's trying to find out more about this Bethany girl," Hanna answered. "She texted about an hour ago."

"I'll call Spence. I don't think she's busy with anything," Emily stated, producing her phone from her pocket and speed dialing a number. We all sat there in silence as it rung a couple of times, and then we heard her pick up.

"Yeah?" came the muffled voice on the other end of the line.

"Come to Hanna's. We have news," Emily stated.

"Be there in five." The call ended and Emily slipped her phone back in her pocket. She sat herself on Hanna's bed, next to the other blonde, and then she looked over at me.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded. "As okay as I can be, I guess."

"She's crazy paranoid, though," Hanna added.

"Yeah well, maybe that's not a bad thing," Emily pointed out. "I'd rather all of us be paranoid. Maybe then we wouldn't do as many things without thinking."

"Okay, we have all thought plans out thoroughly before and still had them blow up in our faces," Hanna reminded me. "A is just always outwitting us and he or she is always one step ahead."

I nodded in agreement. "Or two, or three."

"Not helping," Emily muttered. I sighed, and then there was another knocking from downstairs.

"Make sure it's Spence before you open it," I reminded Hanna as she stood up.

"Yeah, I know, I remember from ten minutes ago when you said the same thing about Emily knocking," Hanna snapped, rolling her eyes. She left the room, leaving me alone with Emily.

"I'm sorry," Emily said suddenly. My eyes immediately snapped over to where she was sitting, but she was looking down at her hands. When I didn't say anything, she looked up at me. "For insinuating that you've never told the truth."

I shook my head. "It's okay. I've told a lot of lies in my life. Maybe a few too many."

Before either of us could say anything else, Hanna and Spencer walked into the room. "What happened? Did somebody get another A text?"

"No, but we know two more people on Mona's Team of Ali Haters," Hanna answered.

"Is that what we're calling it now?" I growled.

"Never mind that," Emily interrupted, waving that away. I inhaled through my nose. "Lucas and… Melissa."

"Melissa? My sister Melissa?" Spencer demanded. "She's working with Mona?"

"According to Paige, yes," Emily answered.

Spencer narrowed her eyes at the other brunette. "Wait, I thought you _and_ Ali just said this morning that you _don't _trust Paige?"

"Spencer, Paige is still in love with me, and she's not going to start handing me big fat lies. Trust me, she wouldn't lie to me right now," Emily answered. Spencer just sighed and shook her head.

"I can't believe that Melissa would be working with _Mona_," Spencer muttered. "Do we even know what Mona and her team of Ali Haters is doing?"

"Seriously, can we _stop_ calling it that?" I snapped. Once again, though, everyone just shrugged my request off.

"Not for sure, but for all we know, Mona is the new A," Emily said, shrugging.

"I don't think so. If she was, she wouldn't have to do anything outside of being A to mess with us," Hanna pointed out.

"Of course she would," Emily argued, "if she's torturing us behind the scenes, she knows that we aren't going to tell anyone. AKA, nobody knows except for us. She has to something out in the open so that people can see us being humiliated or belittled. There's no other way to get _everyone_ to turn on Ali."

I took a shaky breath. There was an awful amount of talk of people hating me, and all it did was make me feel more and more insecure about everything. Being back in Rosewood was making me into an entirely different person. I swallowed thickly. "Well, whether she's A or not, she's obviously getting ready to cause some kind of trouble," Spencer stated obviously. "Maybe I can talk to Melissa and see if she'll say anything."

"She won't," I muttered, but no one seemed to hear me.

"I can try talking to Lucas," Hanna suggested, "but I'm pretty sure he hates me now. After all that's happened."

They continued to talk about Team Mona theories, and I just watched and listened. These girls, who had once followed my every move, had become so independent since then. Sure, I'd watched them do some of that growing when I came to Rosewood after Hanna was first hit by a car. I was really impressed, honestly. There was a time that Hanna had seemed so insecure, that just saying anything against her opinion would've kept her from saying anything else. A time that Emily wouldn't talk much around me unless she was spoken to first. In some sort of way, I felt as though I'd helped to create them into these people. When I "died", it had made them all stronger, and had forced them to grow into new people. If I hadn't run away two years ago, who knows what would have happened?

"Ali?" Emily asked suddenly. "Are you okay?"

I blinked and shook myself out of my thoughts. "Yeah," I answered, nodding. "I've got to go to the bathroom."

_EEE_

Ali excused herself and left the room, and I watched her walk out. "What do you think is on her mind?"

"I think the better question is what _isn't_ on her mind," I corrected, shaking my head sadly. "So much has happened to her after all of this time. Way worse than us, in some ways."

"But in some ways, we had it a lot worse," Spencer added, and Hanna and I nodded in agreement. "Do you think we should just call Aria and try to catch her up real fast? Maybe she can take a break from what she's doing."

"Go for it," I said, shrugging, and Spencer took out her phone to call Aria. I kept an eye on the door the entire time, waiting for Ali to walk back in.

"She's not answering. I'll be sure to tell her tonight, though," Spencer promised.

"Okay," I said, nodding. I wasn't going to stop being on edge until Alison walked back into this room in one piece. After seeing her nearly be strangled, even if I only saw half a second of it, I was terrified of what might happen to her. I was slowly starting to realize that no matter how many time I'd tried to find closure with what happened between me and Ali, I wasn't going to get it. I told Paige, before Ali came back, that I was finally starting to say goodbye to her. If that was true, I definitely hadn't finished saying that goodbye. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to finish it.

I had a bad feeling that I wasn't going to be alone with Ali for four more nights, though, because I had her over the night before. That meant four more nights without talking Alison about this weird situation we were in.

When Ali walked back into the room, I let out a silent breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "What did I miss?" she asked, taking a seat back on the desk chair she'd been sitting on before.

"Aria's not picking up, but I'll fill her in later," Spencer answered. "I think we should wait and talk to her before we make any plans, though."

"Plans?" Alison demanded. "Spencer, we have nothing to go on right now. Lucas and Melissa are working with Mona. Okay, but what is Mona doing? What is A doing? Are the terms A and Mona interchangeable? We don't know anything else. How can we possibly form a plan from that?"

Spencer sighed. "I don't know."

Spencer left a little while later, claiming that she had to go unpack her stuff back into her house. She hadn't completely explained to us what was happening with her family, but I didn't blame her. Weird things were always happening in her family, and now that Melissa was working with Mona, I could completely understand why she wouldn't want to talk about anything.

"Em, do you want to stay for food?" Hanna asked me, but I shook my head.

"My mom's expecting me home," I explained. "I should probably leave now, actually."

"Alright," Hanna said, nodding.

"Call us if Paige dishes up any more names," Ali reminded me. I locked eyes with her for a split second, nodded, and then broke the eye contact. I gave them a quick goodbye and left.

_AAA_

"I should probably get back to my homework," I told Hanna.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Not yet. Maybe in an hour?"

"Sure," she agreed, nodding, and going back to her school book. I picked up my own school binder, and opened it up to where it was before. Sitting there inside the book was my Emily Journal. I had only managed to read a few words before Spencer showed up with schoolwork. I finished that quickly, though, and now I was ready to read some.

I opened it up to the first entry.

_Dear Diary,_

_I'm going to get straight to the point of this. Emily Fields is one of my best friends, but there's always been something different about her. After a while of us being friends, I realized that it was the way she looks at me. It's different than how Emily looks at other people. Different from how other people look at me. Something about her eyes, and her smile._

_Actually, it didn't take me long to realize why she looked at me differently. She was totally into me, and she still is. I don't know if she even really realizes it, but I do. I'm debating whether or not I should bring it up to her sometime. Not necessarily about her liking me, but about her possibly being into girls. It hurts when I think about the fact that she may be hiding a part of herself, even from herself. I can't imagine doing that._

_I know that I have to help her, but I don't know how, and it's driving me crazy._

I sighed silently as I finished reading the entry. Little had that Alison known that one day, she would be seriously considering some sort of relationship between her and Emily. I bit my lip carefully and turned to a random page.

_Emily is getting more and more obvious with her staring. When we all have sleepovers and try on each other's clothes, she never takes her eyes off of me. At first, I liked the attention a lot. The more I think about it now, though, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. Not that a girl is staring at me, but that Emily is. I'm not exactly sure why it makes my stomach squeeze and twist inside of me._

_I'm not sure how everyone else doesn't notice it. Maybe I've just got a special eye for catching onto what Emily is thinking and doing. I can't imagine why I would, though._

I wet my lips and flipped to another random page. My palms were starting to sweat, and I wasn't sure why this was making me so nervous. Maybe the idea of someone else seeing these.

_Emily kissed me in the library today. We were talking about Great Expectations, the book. I read her one of my favorite quotes from it, and then she smiled at me and kissed me. I was honestly really surprised about how simply she did it._

_It wasn't as weird as I thought it would be, kissing a girl. Her lips taste sweet, for one thing. Plus, they're really soft. I kissed her back, I think. Of course, it only lasted about half of a second. I'm glad that she did kiss me, though, I think that she needed to do it for herself. How else are you supposed to accept that you're different if you've never had any evidence to back it up?_

_Maybe that's not true for everyone, but Emily is the kind of girl who has to prove things to herself. And even if she didn't know it, she'd just proved to herself what she is. Whenever she admits it, I'll be really proud of her. I really hope that she shares her realization to us when she realizes it. I don't like to see her hide any part of herself, when the real her is so beautiful and amazing anyway._

I swallowed thickly. Flipped to another page.

_It's been six days since I left Rosewood, no longer Alison DiLaurentis, but Vivian Darkbloom. I hate being away. I hate being someone else. I wonder if this is what Emily feels like when she pretends to not like girls. Like she is hiding under a mask that people aren't perceptive enough to see through._

_Now that I'm gone, I don't know if she'll be able to accept herself sooner or later. On one hand, I won't be there to remind her of her feelings, but on the other hand, maybe her feeling of loss will be enough to admit it to herself._

_It's going to be hard to stay away. I'm so glad that I brought this with me though. This is something real to hold onto. One of the only journals I have that are filled with truths instead of lies._

_I'm going to miss Emily the most. Sure, I love the other girls, but Emily was different. She always cared about me. No matter if I was being a bitch, or if I was being selfish. She somehow managed to see the best part of me. She made me feel more special than I am. I hate that I hurt her such a short time ago. I didn't really mean to snap at her as badly as I did when she kissed my shoulder. I was just scared and surprised._

_The more I think back, the more I realize that whatever feelings Emily had for me, they weren't one sided. They couldn't be. Sure, I loved attention. But when guys did that to me— when they were super obvious about liking me— I always told them off unless I thought there was something to gain. I could've done the same thing to Emily so long ago if I wanted to. But a part of me never wanted to, because a part of me was sure that one day, I could start giving away those feelings instead of always accepting them._

_Not that I can do anything about any of that now. As far as they are concerned, I'm gone for good. A made it clear that he or she wants to kill me, and Mona was nice enough to help me devise a plan to stay away. I wasn't going to ruin my chance to live by going back to Rosewood. Not ever._

_It hurts to say goodbye, especially since I didn't get to say a real goodbye to any of them._

_They might be sad at first though, but they'll eventually realize the good parts about me being gone. I played with them a lot, even though I really did care about them._

_Even if I could come back one day, I doubt that they would ever accept me back._

I blinked, and a tear fell from my eye, startling me. I quickly wiped it away and closed my journal. Then, I closed my binder and looked over at Hanna. "Han, how about that food?"

* * *

**First reveal of what's hidden in Ali's journal! There should be entries in every chapter... Ali skips around a lot when she reads them though, so don't let that confuse you!**

**Like it? Love it? Hate it? Please tell me in a review, or a PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**So this story is, at the moment, the one I'm most into, which is why you got two updates before I updated anything else. Tomorrow I'm going to try and at least update CD before this. However, I may not be able to manage any updates tomorrow, I'm afraid. I'll be busy. And... As I've previously stated, IDDA is on hold for now.**

**Tomorrow I've got to be up really early ugh :( Got that school thing I was talking about before. I have another school thing for most of next weekend, so don't expect any updates on Saturday or Sunday either. :(**

**Ugh I'm actually kind of excited/nervous for the school thing I have tomorrow, which means it's going to be super hard for me to fall asleep early enough to get up at 6:30 AM tomorrow. Ugh, I'll have to figure it out soon. I've actually gotta head to sleep soon, because or else I'm going to never get up on time. Lol...**

**So goodnight lovelies! Please review :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: So I know I said that I had to update CD before I updated this again, but the truth is, I CANNOT stop writing this. Last night I was watching Desperate Housewives on Netflix and at midnight I was like no no no no I need to write more RIMS and then I wrote half a chapter, and this morning I finished it up and so here's y'all's chapter. Damn lol**

**Also a happy little note, on my doc of this story, I'm at 8 chapters and 20,000 words yay ^.^**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

I turned over in my bed, trying to get into a comfortable position. I could not sleep, no matter how hard I tried. Part of the reason might be that I couldn't stop thinking of Alison and wondering if she was okay at Hanna's. If this kept up, then I wouldn't be able to sleep properly until it was my turn to spend the night with Ali. Even then, who knew if I would get any sleep?

I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to think of anything but Ali. I would welcome anything else, as long as it helped me feel a little more relaxed. But nothing came, I was pretty sure that by the time I got up the next morning, I had maybe slept for half an hour max, if at all. I dragged my tired self out of bed and changed into clothes for school.

After I was all ready, I grabbed a quick granola bar for breakfast and left for school. I drove myself and went straight there, focusing on making sure I didn't get into an accident. Maybe it was a bad idea to be driving after getting hardly any sleep.

I met up with Aria and Spencer as soon as I got to school. "Where's Hanna and Ali?" Spencer asked, looking between the other two of us.

I bit my lip nervously and we all looked around us in front of the school, and I sighed when I saw Hanna and Alison walking up from the parking lot. "Hey," Hanna greeted as they met up with us.

"Nothing happened last night, right?" I asked.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Hanna demanded, examining my face. I let out a puff of air and crossed my arms.

"I've got to get to chem. See you guys at lunch," I said, getting nods in return. I headed into the school, shaking off the stress I was feeling. Alison was fine, and she was here at school, where she was always with someone. I didn't need to be this worried. She was going to be fine.

We met up again at lunch. "How's it going?" Spencer asked us as she sat down, seeing that she'd arrived last.

"Surprisingly fine," Aria answered. "Nothing weird has happened today."

"We can't really expect something strange to happen every day, can we?" Hanna wondered.

I shrugged. "You never know nowadays."

"Have none of us gotten any A messages since Ali's last one?" Hanna asked us all.

"Nope, not one," Spencer answered. "It's starting to feel a little eerie. I would almost feel safer if we were getting more texts from the devil."

"Goes to show what A has turned us into," Aria muttered.

"Sometimes I wish that I could just know why A started all of this in the first place. So that I could maybe know how to stop it all," Ali muttered. We were all quiet for a moment as we tried to eat some of our lunch. My worrying was probably starting to get unhealthy, considering that after I could barely sleep at all, now I could barely eat as well.

"I just wish that we had some idea of what we're supposed to be doing, you know?" Aria asked.

"Aren't you doing that internship at Radley though?" I asked. "Have you found out anything about Bethany yet?"

"Nothing. It's really surprisingly hard to leave where I'm supposed to be and sneak into the records room," Aria answered, frowning. "And Eddie won't talk at all, especially since I told him that we've never met and I hadn't ever seen him before. If I start asking questions, he'll know what's going on. And I can't risk asking anyone else, casually or not."

"You just have to find a way into that records room," Spencer reasoned.

"Easier said than done," Aria muttered.

We switched the conversation from those things to regular things. Spencer told us that Toby was doing fine now and that he was out of the hospital, which was good. It was still so stupid that they weren't looking for what caused the gas leak in the Cavanaugh house. But then, maybe we were the only people speculating that it wasn't natural.

Then, changing the topic again, I asked Hanna, "So what's up with Caleb? How long is he staying here?"

"Don't know," Hanna admitted. "We talked some, but not much. He isn't sure if he's going to stay."

"What about Travis, how's he?" Aria asked.

"We decided to end things between us for a while," Hanna admitted.

"You both decided that?" Ali asked pointedly.

Hanna sighed. "Travis found out that Caleb is back and he figures that he's the reason that I haven't really been able to hang out with him as much. Maybe it's the best for us right now anyway. Crazy things are going on."

"Hey, I know it's my night for Ali Watch—" Aria started.

"Ali Watch? Really?" Ali demanded.

"—but I won't be back from Radley until six," Aria finished.

"I have a thing with my mom," Hanna said, frowning.

"Yeah, and I'm uh, hanging out with Melissa today. Well, she doesn't know that we are, but you know," Spencer said.

I tried not to sigh. "You can stay with me until six, Alison."

"Thanks," Ali said, flashing me a quick smile.

"I'll pick you up on my way back from Radley," Aria promised, standing up with her lunch tray and walking off. I hadn't noticed, but it was nearing the end of lunch already.

At the end of the school day, I met up with Ali and we headed to my car together. "How do you feel about Aria going to Radley every day?" Alison asked me.

"I don't know," I answered. "It's kind of creepy, I guess, but she knows how to take care of herself. She'll be fine."

Ali nodded in agreement and we got into my car. "So, _did_ you get any sleep last night?"

"Not really," I admitted.

"What kept you up?" Alison wondered.

I sighed. "I'm a little stressed out and worried. We don't know what A is planning next, and it could be anything at this point. I don't like just waiting around to see what happens. I have a feeling that I'm going to have many sleepless nights in my future."

"Look, I'm never alone anymore, so A has to go through two of us if he or she wants to try and kill me again or something," Ali reminded me.

"Yeah, but what if while you and Aria are cooped up tonight, A comes after one of us that is alone?" I demanded. "We don't know what A wants to happen to any of us."

An uncomfortable look appeared on Alison's face, and I suddenly felt a little bad for freaking her out.

"Sorry, I'm just overly freaked out," I muttered, keeping my eyes on the road as I continued to drive to my house. When we got there, we went up to my room. I fell onto my bed with a groan. I was starting to feel tired.

"Sleep," Ali commanded, "you need to."

"But then who's watching you?" I demanded.

"I'll sit right next to you. I'll do homework. If anything feels weird, I'll wake you up, I promise," Alison promised me, and at this point, it wouldn't have mattered what she said, because my eyes were already closing.

_AAA_

Emily fell asleep almost instantly, and I closed her bedroom door before going and sitting next to her on the other side of the bed. I reached down and brushed some hair out of her face, and then opened up my backpack. I retrieved my Emily journal and opened it up.

I hadn't read much of it since the day before, and I was a little scared about reading it in front of Emily. Since she was asleep, though, I figured that I couldn't have too much to worry about.

Opening the journal to an older page, I started to read.

_Pigskin is getting really annoying. During swim, she never takes her eyes off of Emily. I'm going to have to do something about that. Emily will never like that bitch. I wish Pigskin and her creepy haircut could just go to hell already. Emily is mine and only mine._

_I know that doesn't really make any sense, but lately, I really do feel like Emily is mine in that way. I actually am starting to like her that way, a little bit. Maybe it's just me experimenting, but right now, it feels kind of right._

I glanced over at Emily, sleeping peacefully next to me. She looked so relaxed, which was a big change from how she'd looked when she was awake. I was kind of worried about how stressed out she'd been about all of this. I wished that there was a way to calm her down some. I looked back at my journal and flipped ahead. Most of these older entries weren't very helpful at the moment as much as they were painful.

The newer ones, from when I was on the run, weren't any less painful, though.

_Ever since Emily nearly died in that shed that I pulled her out of, I can't stop thinking about her. It was hard enough when Hanna's life was on the line, but now that Emily was so near death a couple days ago, I'm terrified. I've done so many bad things, and maybe the worse was doing something bad enough to get A to continue going after my best friends even after I left._

_I just wish that Emily could know how sorry I am for everything. I know that she remembers seeing me that day, but she probably thinks it was a dream, or a near death hallucination. Plus, I didn't get out what I should've said. I should've said "I'm sorry" or something. Instead I told her that I missed her the most, and while that is true, it sounds just as manipulative as I've always sounded._

_I did kiss her though. I think that was the first time that I initiated a kiss between us. I hope she remembers that. Whether or not this will make the girls think I'm still alive or not is questionable. Hanna thought she saw me last year and still wasn't convinced. Will this change things? Or will they just shrug it off again? I don't know if I want them to know that I'm alive just yet, though. They'll try to get me back as soon as they find out, even if they do hate my guts. And I can't come back yet._

I frowned. I remembered writing these things, but it felt like it was a different person who had actually written it. Like it wasn't me. Or maybe, like I had just changed so much since then. On one hand, knowing how much I'd changed terrified me. I didn't want to be vulnerable. I wanted to be strong and brave like I used to be.

On the other hand, knowing how badly I'd hurt all of my best friends when I was that person, being a little vulnerable felt good now. I glanced at Emily again, and watched her sleeping face for a moment. She really was beautiful.

I decided not to read anymore of my old journal for now, and slipped it back into my backpack. I told Emily that I would stay right by her, so I just stared across the room. I'd climbed through there once, after the girls found out that I was alive, to talk to Emily. She told me then that she no longer managed to see the best part of me. I couldn't help but wonder if that was still true. I closed my eyes and took a slow breath. I didn't like not knowing how Emily was feeling. I used to be able to look at her and tell exactly what was going through her head.

Now, though, she had a wall around her emotions. A tall, strong wall that I was sure was built after I broke her heart, before I ran away. My heart clenched when I thought of that time in the locker room, when Emily kissed my shoulder. I had definitely been too hard on her about that. What was she supposed to think after I hadn't pulled away from her kiss in the library?

I must've drifted off into sleep for a little while, because I woke again at five-thirty. Half an hour before Aria was supposed to come and get me. I sat up, stretching a little, and looked down next to me at the sleeping Emily.

She stirred next to me, and I held my breath slightly. Her eyes flickered open and her eyes met mine. "How long did I sleep?" she whispered.

"A couple of hours," I answered. "It's five thirty."

She groaned a little as she sat up. "What were you doing all this time?"

"I slept some, too," I admitted, shrugging. "Do you feel better, now that you've slept?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I was really sleep deprived."

"Try to get some more sleep tonight too, okay?" I said, giving her a sweet smile. "I'll be fine at Aria's, and you all will be fine, too."

"You don't know that," Emily argued.

"Yeah, but you don't know that things won't be fine," I argued right back, not missing a beat. "There's no point in worrying when we can't do anything more than what we're doing to prevent problems."

Emily nodded. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," I joked, and she rolled her eyes playfully at me. We silently decided to start on homework, and at six, Aria arrived and picked me up. I gave Em a quick goodbye before I left, wishing and hoping that tonight and tomorrow night could be over with soon so that I could spend the night with Emily again.

* * *

**Ohhemmgee can't it be Emily's turn to have Ali sleep over?**

**Likee? Lovee? Hatee? I hope you guys will review and let me know your feedback. Favs and follows are great, but reviews are what let me know how you guys are actually liking the story. If you don't feel like reviewing, though, you're welcome to send me a private message :) Also, follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back bccc you're awesome :)**

**Random thing for today hmm... well, I realized that I talk/write really weird sometimes. Likeee I say things that I don't ever hear anyone else say haha. Or at least that I don't hear a lot of people say. Like "so totally awesome" or "so super excited". Or I'll say things weird and I dunno likeee... lol likee is one of those things like when I hear it in my head I hear "Liiiiike" but I write it "likeeee" lol... I'm so strange. Also I made up a word once it's "spiffabulous" and it is a mixture of spiffy and fabulous. Oh also pyped. Yeah it's a mixture of pumped and hyped. I say it all the time on accident bc when I'm hyped I'm pumped, ya know?**

**Ah well, I'm my own person ;)**

**Have a great day my loves! Don't be surprised if you get another update soonish... I really would appreciate some more reviews on this story :) I do want to know what you all think and even some suggestions :) So please review :) (Aren't you glad my update speed doesn't rely on reviews though? :P)**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This chapter is a little on the short side, but the next few should be longer :D I am having trouble writing my other fics at the moment, because I have so much inspiration for this one and I don't want to lose it, ya know? Lol...**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"So, is something going on between you and Em?" Aria wondered, and I narrowed my eyes, snapping my head up to look at her. Had Hanna mentioned something to Aria? She wasn't looking at me, though, and I got the feeling that Hanna hadn't mentioned anything to her. Maybe Emily had. Or maybe she was just curious.

"I don't know," I answered cautiously, looking back down at my homework.

"Oh," Aria stated, and now I could feel her eyes on me. Maybe I would've done better with just answering with a simple no. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I bit my lip and looked to the left of my homework inside my binder. Sitting there, unopened, was my Emily journal. I hadn't looked in it since earlier when I was at Emily's. I swallowed thickly, grabbed the thing and tossed it at Aria, who caught it skillfully.

"What is this?" she questioned.

"Just open it," I insisted, not sure if I'd be able to get the words out. She opened the journal up to its first page and her eyes widened slightly. She flipped through the pages, stopping every now and then to read little bits and pieces. I watched her warily, afraid of what she might say afterward. I wasn't exactly sure why I was showing this to Aria, but it was probably because she was the only one of the girls who could keep something like that from Emily until I wanted to tell her. Hanna would blab it accidentally, and Spencer would argue with me until she basically forced me to tell Em.

"Wow," Aria muttered, still looking at some of the last of the word covered pages. "You've had this a long time."

I nodded, even though she wasn't looking at me, because I didn't trust my voice.

"You have to show Emily," Aria reasoned.

"I can't," I argued, shaking my head as she looked over at me.

"Why not? What is a better way for her to finally believe what you tell her than to realize that it's all actually true?" Aria questioned, which led me to believe that Emily had only mentioned her not trusting me.

"If I can't prove to her that I can be trustworthy, than there isn't a point in her knowing how what I felt for her," I stated.

"_Felt_?" Aria repeated, looking at me pointedly.

"Felt, feel, whatever. I don't even know what it is that I'm feeling. That's why I have this with me. It was locked up in a drawer, but I figured it would help me sort through all of the things that are tangled up in my head right now," I explained.

"Well, here's a tip for you. When the things in your head are way too tangled, stop listening to your head. Listen to you heart instead," Aria advised, giving me a half smile and tossing my journal back to me. I grabbed it out of the air and set it back down where it was before.

"What if my heart feels just as tangled?" I asked, but too quietly for Aria to hear me. I let out a sigh and looked away from the book and back at my homework. I needed to keep up with this stuff if I was going to finish school. I had barely tested my way into senior year. They almost made me take sophomore and junior year, or at least the latter, but with some helpful prodding from my dad, and a test that passed me out of sophomore and junior year, I was at the same level as my best friends. But I had to keep up.

A few minutes later, Aria's phone went off, and I felt my own vibrate in my pocket. Too freaked out to look at my own, I looked over at her, concerned, as she checked it. When she started to read it out loud, I knew that it couldn't be any good. "I hope I've given you enough time to bounce back. If any of you leave Rosewood, I'll do it all again, but this time, no one will get in my way. A."

I swallowed thickly. A gave us a little time to rest before giving us the glittering news that him or her trying to kill me was just proof of what could happen, if any of us tried to leave. "Do you think Spence and Em and Han got the text, too?"

"I'll text them all," Aria answered, sending out a text as she spoke. A few seconds later, she said, "Looks like they all got it, too."

"So A wants us to stay in Rosewood, but why?" I demanded. Aria frowned.

"I have no idea. Everyone's busy right now, but Spencer said we can all meet at her place tomorrow. That's where you're staying tomorrow, right?" Aria asked.

"I guess so. This 'Ali Watch' thing is kind of creeping me out honestly," I admitted.

Aria gave me a sympathetic smile. "We just don't want anything to happen to you."

"Emily thinks that A is going to target one of you guys. The ones who I'm not staying with at the moment," I explained.

"I hadn't thought of that," Aria admitted. "I guess we're all really concerned for you and haven't really thought of what A might be planning for the rest of us."

"We all need to be careful," I insisted.

_EEE_

I managed to sleep a little bit that night, after Alison had insisted that things wouldn't necessarily be all bad. I probably would've been able to sleep a lot better if we hadn't have all gotten that A message. That was what mostly kept me awake all night.

It was Saturday the next day, so there wasn't any school. We were going to meet at Spencer's around noon, but I found myself showing up there nearly an hour early. Once I'd woken up early that morning, I hadn't been able to sit still, let alone fall back asleep.

"I thought we were meeting at noon," Spencer told me pointedly as I walked past her and into her house.

"We are, but I can't sit still. I had to get out of my house. My mom kept asking me why I'm so jumpy," I admitted.

"Why are you so jumpy?" Spencer asked. "No one else has died yet."

I shot her a glare. "That isn't funny."

"Look, Em, worrying this much isn't helping anyone," Spencer stated simply. "You have to calm down if you're going to help us figure out what we need to do."

"You're right, but I can't stop freaking out," I muttered, crossing my arms.

"Do you want me to make you some hot tea?" Spencer asked, making her way into the kitchen and to the stove.

I nodded and answered with, "Sure, thanks."

When the tea was done, we sat down at her counter table and didn't say anything. I sipped at the tea she'd made me and tried to keep my heart from beating out of my chest. I could not calm down.

At noon, there was a knock at the door. Spencer got up to get it, and in came Hanna, Aria and Alison. "Looks like we're all here," Hanna stated obviously. "When did you get here, Em?"

"She got here an hour ago because she can't stop freaking out," Spencer stated.

"Look, I have every reason to be scared, okay?" I snapped at Spencer.

"Calm down," Ali commanded, and I clenched my jaw, not saying anything else. I had to admit that Alison telling me to calm down was a little more effective than the others saying it. "We need to decide what to do about A."

"How are we going to do that?" I demanded.

"I think we need to have a sit down, look back at all of the stuff we still have from A and come up with some sort of correlation," Hanna stated.

"A has changed three times, Hanna, maybe more," Aria reminded her. "That won't work. This person might not be connected with Mona or Shana or anyone."

"I think the only way to really catch A is the catch him or her in the act of doing something," Spencer stated.

"What, like we did in junior year? When I pretended that I wanted to make a deal with A?" I asked, and I saw Alison visibly swallow from where she was standing.

"I don't think this A will fall for anything like that," Aria argued. "This A is obviously a lot more serious than Mona was."

"Unless Mona is A again and she's just gotten much more extreme," Hanna muttered.

"Well I was thinking that maybe we just need to have someone on _our_ side watching us from a distance. Maybe while we're walking to school or something. I can ask Toby. He can just watch from a distance and see if he sees anyone else watching us," Spencer suggested.

"We can try it," Ali said, nodding, "but I don't think we should do it more than once or twice. A will catch on."

"Sounds worth a shot," I agreed. "Monday?"

"Should work," Spencer agreed, nodding.

"Good, so we've got some sort of plan," Hanna said, letting out a sigh of relief. I felt a little relieved as well, because having some sort of possibility of catching A calmed me down.

Alison cleared her throat. "So, anyone have plans today?"

Spencer, Hanna and Alison ended up hanging out at Spencer's, but Aria had a thing to do with Ezra, and I had plans to help Sydney with her swimming. I wasn't really excited about it, because Paige was going to be there, too, but I had promised her. Hopefully it would at least get my mind off of things.

I got to the pool and saw that Paige was there, but not Sydney yet. "Hey," I greeted. She glanced at me and nodded her greeting.

"Everything okay? I haven't heard from you since you came to me about the names," she said.

"I've been really busy. Ali's been going through some really tough stuff, so we're all trying to be there for her," I told Paige. I wasn't really lying to her, just stretching the truth a tiny bit. "But I promised Sydney about today, so."

Paige nodded that she understood, and then Sydney came in, dressed her in swimming attire.

I spent the afternoon critiquing Sydney's strokes and form. It made me feel at ease to be doing something that I was really good at. It made me feel like I was in control of something, finally. I almost wanted to just jump into the water and start swimming myself, but I couldn't, not until they said my shoulder was completely okay.

That night was easier. I slept almost six hours, which was the best I'd done pretty much all week. When I woke up the next morning, it dawned on me that today, Sunday, was my day to watch Alison. Which meant that she was staying at my place tonight.

I tried not to feel nervous as I got out of bed and got dressed. I wasn't sure when Spencer and I were going to do the trade off, but if it was going to be early, I wanted to look decent.

Spencer texted and said that everyone was going to meet at the Brew, and that she would have to go for some school club thing after. I hadn't even known that she was still doing any school clubs. Nevertheless, I got my purse and got ready to head to the Brew.

* * *

**So this was a bit of a filler, the next couple of chapters will be much more important ;)**

**Like it? Hate it? Please let me know in a quick review, or a PM :) Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you backkk :)**

**Remember guys, 50th reviewer on this story gets a shoutoutttt :)**

**So I'm a weirdo and I'm actually a little excited about school starting, because I'm going to be involved in some cooler things this year that I'm actually excited about. But like my orientation is in a few weeks and I'm nervous to get my schedule bccc like what if I don't have classes with any of my friends D: Also, I'm totally terrified about what lunch I'm going to get. There are 4 lunches at my school, and I've had the first lunch for as long as I can remember. Which means I'm used to eating lunch at like 11 AM. BUT WHAT IF I GET LIKE THE LAST LUNCH? I WILL DIE.**

**Okay so yeah first world problems I know lol I'm just kidding though xP**

**Have a great day my lovelies :) I'll TRY to update some of my other stories before my thing this weekend... lol... Please review :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I have a special surprise for you guys :) It's in this chapter :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Hey," Emily said in greeting as she sat down next to Aria on the couch in the Brew.

"Hey," we all greeted back lamely.

"So what exactly are we all doing here?" Hanna asked, and by the look on Emily's face, I figured that she had the same question.

"Well, yesterday," Aria started, "after Ezra and I moved all of his files to his friend's shed, I went to Radley for a little bit to scope things out again. I found a sketchpad that belonged to Bethany."

"What, like filled with drawings?" Hanna asked.

"Drawings like the one of Ali's mom?" Emily added questioningly, giving me a concerned look that I returned with a smile to reassure her that I was okay.

"Yep. I took some pictures, but I couldn't take it," Aria admitted, pulling out her phone and passing it to Em. She'd already sent these photos to Spencer, so I'd already seen them. Though I sort of wish that I hadn't seen them. Some of them were pretty gruesome, and the ones with my mom in them kind of freaked me out.

"Wow, these are mega creepy," Hanna muttered, looking at the pictures with Emily. "What do they mean?"

"Well, she gave them to her roommate at Radley," Spencer answered, and Aria didn't stop her as she started taking up the explanation. "I figured that if maybe Aria can get on this girl's good side, she might say something about Bethany."

"Can you do that?" Emily asked Aria, sounding concerned.

"I can definitely try," Aria agreed, shrugging. "I mean, this girl is bat shit crazy, and so far, I don't have a clue of how to get through to her. I obviously have to try, though."

"You don't _have_ to do anything," I reminded her carefully. No one was being drafted here.

"I know that, but if we want to be any closer to solving this mystery, then yes, I have to," Aria argued, shaking her head. "There's no volunteering on Sundays, so I'll go tomorrow."

"Speaking of tomorrow, Toby said he'll watch us on our way to school tomorrow. That means we all have to meet up and walk," Spencer told us.

"Meet at Em's place then?" Hanna suggested.

"Works," Emily agreed, nodding.

Spencer nodded, "Right well, I better get going. I have a Decathlon meeting."

"Suddenly it's so important to go to those?" Aria questioned.

"Yeah, didn't Mona basically boot you off the team?" Hanna wondered.

Spencer shrugged. "She dropped the club, so they're doing a revote for team captain."

"Good luck," Emily wished Spencer, who nodded her thanks and then stood, leaving the Brew.

"You girls want to hit the mall?" Hanna asked the rest of us. "My wallet has been whining to me so much. I haven't had the time or energy for real shopping."

"I'm in," Emily agreed instantly, and I nodded to Hanna, because whatever Emily was doing today, I was doing too. Not just because it was her day to 'watch' me, but because I really wanted to hang out with her, even if Hanna was there.

"I can come too," Aria agreed, smiling. "Take separate cars and meet up there?"

"Sure. See you all in a few," Hanna answered, nodding. She and Aria stood up and they left the Brew side by side, before splitting up to find their cars. I finally met Emily's eyes.

"How'd you sleep?" I asked her carefully.

"Better," she admitted, "but not good."

"I'm sorry," I told her, frowning, but she shook her head. As if it weren't a big deal.

"It's not your fault," she insisted, even though I knew that was kind of a lie. I had definitely contributed to her sleeping problems, whether she wanted to admit it or not. "We should head to the mall."

I nodded in agreement and forced my feelings downward. Emily wouldn't be able to avoid the hard conversations tonight, when we had to sleep in the same room. I shivered nervously at the thought of it, though, thinking back to those kisses we shared in my bed.

We stood and I followed her out of the Brew and to her car, and then I climbed into her passenger seat as she got in the driver's side. "So," Emily said, drawing my attention immediately over to her, even though she wasn't looking at me, "what do you think about all of this Radley stuff?"

"I think it's all necessary," I admitted, "but I don't like any of it. I don't like finding out about this girl and whatever connection she had to my mother. I don't like that people thought she was me for years. I don't like that she was buried in my grave, and I don't like that people wish it were me that had been buried there, like I was supposed to."

"Ali, people don't think that," Emily argued, glancing at me as she drove.

"Yes they do, Em. Maybe you don't, but even the rest of the girls think about it sometimes. I'm sure you have too, at one point or another. What would if have been like if I had died like I was supposed to? A probably wouldn't have bothered you all. Imagine what an amazing high school life that would've brought you," I argued.

"It doesn't matter," Emily argued right back.

"What doesn't matter?"

"All of that. Sure, things could've been a lot different. But I spent a long time thinking you were dead. It tore me apart, Alison. No matter what happened because you didn't die that night, I couldn't help but just feel happy and relieved when we saw you after we got back from Ravenswood," Emily admitted, and I swallowed thickly at the admission. It made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

"How come you told me that you didn't see the good side of me anymore, then?" I wondered, because it was important to me that I know these things.

"Because at that time, I didn't know if you were running, or you were chasing," Emily stated, and although the answer was sort of abstract, I knew what she meant. Was I the one pulling the strings? She hadn't known anything for sure. "I tried to say goodbye to you after all of that. I told Paige all about our past and tried to move on. But I still haven't."

"You know they say that your first love stays with you forever," I commented shyly, looking down at my lap. I knew that she was staring hard at the road, trying to figure out what it was that I was trying to say.

Finally, she answered. "Maybe." We pulled up to the mall and got out of the car once we were parked. As soon as we entered, we met up with Hanna and Aria. It'd been a long time since we all went shopping together. In the past, Spencer had missed a lot of the shopping trips though. She was always busy with things like Decathlon. Maybe things were starting to get back to normal.

At least, that's what I thought until I realized that everyone in the mall seemed to look at me like I was some sort of plague to stay away from. I hadn't noticed it when I went shopping with Hanna and Emily earlier that week, but now it was so obvious. The girls tried to pretend like nothing was weird, so I did, too. And we went hours shopping for clothes, and we all pretended like I wasn't the dead girl who came back from the grave with more than a few lies to tell.

As the clock led into the afternoon, we finished up our shopping and went to the food court. After we got food, we sat around a table and talked about teachers at school, and how I was liking classes. We talked about anything that we could that wasn't about A or Bethany, and it was a nice break.

After lunch, we said our goodbyes and we left them all to go to our separate cars, or in my case, to go to Emily's car. "That was a nice break," I said as I sat in the passenger seat.

"I guess," Emily agreed, giving me a concerned look, as if wondering if I'd seen everyone with their eyes glued to me in the stores. I just shrugged, and she looked away, beginning to drive back toward her house. "What do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

"We should watch movies," I decided, smiling to myself. "Maybe like a cheesy romantic comedy."

"Okay, when we get to my place, you can pick one," Emily agreed. When we did get back to her place, I went up to her room to pick a movie while she popped popcorn downstairs. I was scanning her movie shelf for the perfect movie when I suddenly heard someone behind me. I jumped and spun around, but it was just Emily, sitting down on her bed with a bowl of popcorn. "Sorry, I didn't meant to scare you."

"It's fine," I muttered, embarrassed by how scared I was.

"I would've jumped too," Emily promised, as though trying to keep from being embarrassed. I just shrugged and picked one of the romantic comedies on Emily's shelf, not really caring which one it was. I set it up on her little TV and then flipped the lights in her room off, before sitting next to her on her bed. We shared the popcorn, and our hands brushed each other's a few times, but neither of us reacted to it, aside from the tingles I was getting from it. I couldn't help but wonder if this was how Emily had felt all the time when I used to tease her. I couldn't help but wonder if Emily still felt those tingles.

When we finished the popcorn, she set the empty bowl on the floor beside her bed and we both got under the covers to watch the rest of the movie. The movie started to get a little sad, and I scooted closer to Emily, who hesitantly wrapped her arm around me. It made me feel safe, safer than it felt to have someone with me twenty-four seven. If I could lay in Emily's arms forever, I would never be scared of anything.

When the movie was over, Emily's mom was already calling us down for dinner. Emily pulled away from our strange contact quickly and nervously, and I hoped that we wouldn't be like that forever.

She turned off her TV and we both went downstairs to join Emily's mom for dinner.

_EEE_

"This is really good, Mrs. Fields," Alison commented on the food, getting a smile from my mom.

"I'm glad you like it, Alison," she returned. "How has school been since you got back?"

"It's been okay. It is a little harder now, but I think I'll get through it. I'll just have to get Spencer to help me study like crazy when all of the final exams roll around," Ali answered, smiling.

"You've got some good friends here, you know?" my mom told her, smiling pointedly at me.

"I know," Alison assured her, glancing at me as well.

I helped my mom clear the table after dinner, and Alison went upstairs to change into something comfy for the night. I had told her that she could borrow anything of mine, and she'd seemed a little happy about that.

"So, Emily," my mom stared, and I braced myself for whatever my mom was about to say to me about Alison, "I had a thought earlier."

"Yeah?"

"I just started thinking about how you were before Alison got kidnapped, and I realized that maybe back then, you liked her as a bit more than a friend," my mom said, looking at me curiously.

I nodded stiffly. "I did."

"And now?"

I took a deep breath. "I don't know, Mom. I'm working on it."

"Well… I just want you to be careful to protect your heart, Emily," my mom told me carefully. I nodded.

"I know, Mom, I am," I promised. "I'll be going upstairs now, unless you need anything else?"

"Nope, thank you dear." I nodded in response and then hurried upstairs. I found Alison on my bed, reading something in her school binder. She glanced up at me when I walked in, but quickly moved her gaze back down to her binder.

"I'm going to shower and change, and then maybe we can watch another movie before we go to bed," I suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Ali agreed, smiling at me. I returned it with a smile of my own and slipped into my bathroom.

_AAA_

That gave me maybe fifteen minutes tops to read some more things in my journal. I was freaking out already, so nervous to sleep next to Emily again. Last time I had managed it pretty well, but that was because I was so overly tired and well, frankly, whatever I was feeling had completely doubled or tripled since the last time I slept over at her house. Now when I thought about that kiss we shared almost a week ago, I knew that I wanted to kiss Emily again, like that.

I started to read the page I was open to.

_Emily sent me a letter today. I never thought words on paper could hurt so bad. I haven't approached Emily about the letter, because I only read it right after I gave her my grandmother's snow globe, and we're hanging out later tonight at Spencer's barn. I can't call her out on this, not today. Maybe not ever, either, because this is completely my fault._

_Honestly, I cried for an hour after I read her letter to her. I hurt her really bad. I had been hurting her really bad, for a long time. And now she was finally realizing all that I'd done to her, and she hated me for it. I can't even think about her hating me. Damn it, I'm going to start crying again. I never wanted to hurt her, and now here it was, coming back and biting me hard in the ass._

_I have no idea what I'm going to do to fix this, but I have to think of something. Not until tomorrow, though. Tonight, I have to focus on keeping A from getting what he or she wants. I will not die tonight._

I felt a hot tear roll down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away. I couldn't be crying when Emily walked back in, or she would suspect something. It was just that remembering her letter made me want to jump off of a cliff. She had called me out on all of the bad things I'd done to her, and it had hurt me to know how badly I'd hurt her. How could she ever have forgiven me for that?

Or had she even forgiven me for all of it yet?

Of course, she had no way to know if I even read her letter before I left. She had probably sent it while I was gone at Hilton Head, and I was only home for half a day before I was gone again.

I flipped to a new page.

_Emily and Paige are getting serious again, I saw them together. I'm glad that Em's happy, but Pigskin drives me crazy. At first, I thought that I just didn't like her because she was a total bitch, but now I'm starting to realize that I don't like that Emily likes her. I don't like it at all. It was one thing when Paige was crushing on Emily, but now that they're together again… I can't help but feel completely jealous._

_I'm jealous that Emily likes Paige instead of me. There, I said it, sort of. I can't really explain it, and I know it might seem selfish of me to say that. But after nearly three years without Emily, sometimes all I want to do is steal that girl back and have her to myself. But more than that, I'm not even sure if I want her to me mine as much as I want to be hers. And that's something I thought I would never say about anyone, let alone Emily._

_It's hard to sort through these feelings. If I ever get to talk to Emily again, I have no idea what I'll say. My feelings will probably get even more jumbled. Hell, I can just imagine myself looking back at this journal hoping that it will help._

I tried not to let out an ironic snort at that. I remembered writing that. It was just after I moved into my basement. I swear, though, that I never peeped up Emily's skirt that the girls thought that whoever was down there must've done. Anyway, at the time, they thought that it was CeCe who was staying down there.

Emily walked back into the room, dressed in some sweats and a tank, similar to what I borrowed from her. I had to admit that I liked dressing in Emily's clothes. They gave me a safe feeling, probably because they smelled a bit like her.

"What do you want to watch?" Emily asked, coming around the side of the bed to sit next to me. As she did, I closed my binder and the book inside before setting it on the floor next to my side of Emily's bed. It wasn't the right time for her to see anything inside of that book. Yet.

"What do _you_ want to watch?" I countered.

_EEE_

We ended up deciding on just another cheesy romantic movie, because neither of us could deal with any horror movies and I didn't have much else. When the movie was over, I turned off the TV and went back to my bed. "Tired?" I asked the blonde, who nodded.

"You?" she asked, pulling the covers up to her chin.

"Yeah," I answered, and she gave me a soft smile, before turning and facing away from me on the bed. I slipped my legs under the covers, but stayed sitting up.

For half an hour I sat there while Ali slept. I wouldn't ever be able to go to sleep while Alison was here. I had to protect her, right? What was the point of this pairing up thing if we were just both going to end up asleep? A could easily just get into the house and steal Alison away.

Suddenly, I felt Ali take my nervous hand in her own. I glanced down at her, surprised that she was awake. "Go to sleep," she commanded softly, squeezing my hand lightly.

I shook my head. "I can't."

Ali laced our fingers together and used her thumb to lightly stroke mine. "Yes you can."

I let out a light sigh at the feeling of her holding my hand, but I knew that I still couldn't go to sleep. I had to be awake to protect Alison. "If I go to sleep, then I can't protect you."

"Em, stop trying to protect me," Alison demanded, her voice quiet but firm. "Start letting me protect you."

I avoided looking down at her eyes, and then I felt her sit up next to me, keeping our hands clasped together.

"You're always protecting me, Em," Ali stated softly. "You're always protecting everyone. That's how you hurt your shoulder, remember? You need to start letting people protect you."

"I don't need protection," I argued, still not looking at her.

Ali didn't argue with that directly, instead she said, "I never protected you like you protected me. In fact, I may have done the opposite of protecting you. I never really realized how badly I hurt you until I read your letter."

I inhaled sharply. Alison had seen that letter? Why hadn't she ever said anything about it since she got back? I thought that if she ever saw it, she would hate me for it. "You read that?"

"Yep, the day I got back from Hilton Head," Ali admitted. "I cried for an hour. Not because you hurt me, but because it hurt me to know how badly I hurt you. If I made it through that night, I was going to try to figure a way to let you know how sorry I was. How sorry I am."

I swallowed thickly, and tried to just focus on the feeling of her thumb stroking mine softly.

"I never got to do that, though," Alison whispered. "I wasn't going to ever bring that letter up to you, because it was my fault that you got mad enough to write it, and I never blamed you for writing it either."

"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked carefully.

"Because I want you to know," Ali answered. "And I want you to understand why you have to let me protect you now. I don't want you to get that hurt again. Not by me, not by anyone, because seeing you hurt breaks my heart."

I wondered how hard it was for Ali to admit these things to me. They didn't sound like lies. They sounded completely true. I took a shaky breath. "But you're the one who needs to be protected right now."

Finally, I turned my head to meet Ali's eyes, which dropped to glance at my lips for a moment when I looked at her. They quickly bounced back up to meet mine, though. "Then we can protect each other."

We were so close somehow, and I felt her warm breath hit my lips. My heart was racing. Alison squeezed my hand, and leaned forward, closing the gap in between us. Her eyes were closing, so mine closed instinctively. Her lips touched mine tentatively, softly. For a moment, we hovered there, our lips just touching. But then she moved hers against mine, and I melted, kissing her back. Her body rotated a bit, and her free hand found a place on my cheek, where she brushed away some of my hair. My free hand pushed the blanket off of us carefully, and then rested on Ali's shoulder.

Ali pressed her lips to mine even harder, and I felt her tongue dance lightly against my lips. Hardly hesitating, I parted my lips. Our tongues twisted together in a sort of dance, and it this felt right. Though my heart was racing, I felt strangely calm and at peace.

I had barely even realized that I was laying down now, against my pillow, and Ali was kissing me from above, not from the side. I felt her shift under the blankets, and then I felt one of her legs place itself on the opposite side of me of where Ali was. She was straddling me now, and I found myself actually very surprised.

We broke apart for air, and my eyes flickered open. Her eyes met mine and we searched each other's souls for a moment. She used one of her hands to brush some hair out of my face, and I sighed contently.

"You're tired," she stated quietly. "We should sleep."

I pulled her down for another gentle, soft kiss, and then we pulled apart again and I nodded. "We should."

She got off of me, and I missed the lack of physical contact immediately. I turned away from Ali, to avoid staring at those beautiful lips of hers. I had a feeling that now I definitely wasn't going to be able to sleep, but then I felt Alison's hand rest gently, almost hesitantly, on my waist.

Smiling to myself, I placed my hand over hers and pulled it down to rest on my stomach. Now, Ali seemed more confident, and she pulled me close to her. My back was pressed into her front, and it felt so good. I heard her whisper, "Go to sleep. Let me protect you."

I only had time to nod before I was already drifting off into a completely peaceful sleep.

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**AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW EMISON :)**

**Happy surprise? :)**

**Likeed it? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know in a quick review or PM? :D Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! =D**

**SO I JUST DECIDED THAT I'M GOING TO WRITE THE REST OF THIS A/N IN ALL CAPS BC I CAN. SOOO I NEED SOMETHING RANDOM FOR TODAY HMMMM HMMMM HMMMM... DANGG IT I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING. I THINK THIS ALL CAPS THING IS DISTRACTING ME.**

**Okay, so over that. Uhmmmm well OH OH OH! Today I went to my acting class and we were practicing casting calls and OMG I got to read for Elena from TVD like a scene from the pilot and omg I was so happy I was like YASSSSSSSSSSSSS bc everyone else got scenes from like old shows lol. =D Yay me! I think I did pretty good too :D**

**So goodnight lovelies! Please review :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Here is the next chapter :D No updates all weekend, guys... well, possibly Sunday night, but I'll probably update CD and SOWK before this again.**

**Shoutout time yay! 50th reviewer was... badadadada... DantanaFanFic ! Your reviews always make me smile bee :) Hehe thank you all for reviewing :D**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

I woke up with my arm still wrapped protectively around Emily. Our clothed bodies were still pressed together, and I sighed contently. I was so happy with how the previous night had been. We hadn't talked about everything, but the fact that we had talked at all was good. Plus, we'd shared an incredible moment and I had succeeded in getting Emily to sleep soundly. I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Carefully pulling away from the sleeping girl, I grabbed my phone from the side table next to Emily's bed. It was early, which explained why Emily's school alarm hadn't gone off yet. However, I had a text message that I'd missed.

I opened it, swallowing thickly as I saw who it was from.

**From Blocked ID- You had better hold Emily close while you still can, because when I'm done with you, nobody will love you. -A**

I bit my lip nervously and glanced over at Emily. I set my phone back down on the end table and carefully climbed out of her bed. I went to both of her windows, checking around for cameras or something. I hated that none of us knew how A could see us all of the damn time.

Once I was sure that I couldn't see any cameras, I made my way back to Emily's bed and laid back down next to her, wrapping my arm back around her and holding her close to me. I at least wanted her to wake up in a good way.

She woke up a few minutes later, letting out a "mm" noise as she shifted a little bit. "Ali?" she whispered after a minute, wondering if I was awake.

"I'm awake," I answered quietly.

"Are you okay?" she asked me softly, probably hearing the nerves in my voice. I pulled away from her and she turned around, concerned. I grabbed my phone again and opened the text message, before handing it to Emily.

"I got it last night, but I only saw it a few minutes ago," I told her as she read the message.

"What does A mean, 'when I'm done with you'?" Emily asked, sounding really worried. "What is A going to do to you?"

"I don't know," I answered in a whisper. "I'm scared, Em."

"So am I," she answered, biting her lip nervously. Before either of us could say anything else, my phone beeped, and we both started a little. I glanced at the new text, but it was only from Spencer.

"She said to make sure that we're waiting outside a little early, since we're walking not driving," I reminded Emily.

"Oh yeah, our attempt to catch A," she muttered.

"Maybe it'll work," I suggested, and Emily gave me a look that said she didn't think so.

She asked, "Do you really think so?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, though."

"It's hard to be optimistic after that text message," Emily muttered. "Are you going to tell the others about it?"

"I have to," I answered, "but I… I can leave out the part about you if you want. Because we don't really know what this is."

"Yeah, maybe that's a good idea for now," Emily agreed, and I nodded. I climbed out of bed. I didn't have really any clothes to wear, because the other girls had all taken me to my place before school started so that I could change.

"Um, can I borrow something of yours?" I asked awkwardly. "I don't think we'll have time to stop at my place."

"Uh, sure," Emily answered, getting out of bed as well. "Grab whatever." I went to her closet and looked carefully through her clothes. I finally decided to go with some jeans and a simple blouse. Emily didn't have the fanciest clothes in the world, and most of her clothes really weren't my style, but that was one my favorite things about her.

Once I had the clothes, I slipped into Emily's bathroom to get changed. Once I started my makeup, there was a knock on the door and I opened it so that Emily could come in and do her makeup as well. Once we were both presentable, we went back into her room to grab our school stuff. I slipped my binder and journal into my backpack and we went downstairs. Emily grabbed us both a granola bar, and handed me mine. I decided to save it for later, because after seeing that text, I wasn't really hungry.

"Hey," the others greeted us as we walked out of Emily's house. I was a little surprised that they were all already there.

"Are you wearing Emily's clothes?" Spencer asked, looking at me suspiciously. I just shrugged, and I saw Hanna smirking. As we started down the street, I decided to change the topic.

"I got another A text," I stated.

"What did it say?" Aria demanded.

"A said that whenever he or she is done with me, no one will love me," I stated nervously. "I mean, I already know that most everyone hates me… but you guys? My dad? What could A do to make me even more easy to hate?"

"You know that we wouldn't turn against you, Ali," Emily stated, and I was glad for her reassurance, but it didn't really help me. I gave her a worried look.

"I don't know what A is going to make me do, or what he or she is going to do to make it look like I did something, but I promise that I'm changed, okay?" I said, looking at all of them. "I swear that I'm not the same insensitive bitch that you guys knew three years ago."

"We know, Ali," Aria insisted, but I wasn't really convinced. I felt Emily nudge me a little, and I looked at her next to me. She gave me a reassuring smile, and I felt myself calm down a little.

"Well, we can assume that A is either going to try to expose something about you or force you to do something," Spencer reasoned as we left the neighborhood.

"Yeah, but the question is what exactly is it going to be?" Hanna asked. No one answered, because no one knew.

_EEE_

"Can I see the whole text?" Spencer asked.

"Uh… no," Ali answered, biting her lip and glancing at me.

"Why not?" Spencer demanded, narrowing her eyes at the blonde.

Alison swallowed visibly before she answered with a simple, "There was something personal in the text, too."

"Come on Ali, if we don't know everything about you, then A has more to use against you," Hanna reminded her.

Now, Alison glanced obviously at me and I let out a light sigh, shrugging at her. The blonde carefully retrieved her phone and opened the text, before passing it over to Spencer.

"What was A talking about?" Spencer asked, looking at me and Ali suspiciously. Aria took the phone from Spencer and she and Hanna read the message as well. I caught Hanna with a smirk on her face, and Alison must have too, because she snatched back her phone.

"It doesn't matter," Ali stated.

"Is there something going on between you two?" Spencer asked. Of course she was the one late to the party.

"Can we not talk about me and Ali right now?" I piped up. "Please?"

"Fine," Spencer agreed, shaking her head slightly, like she was confused. "Anyway, did you have any journals or secrets locked up anywhere that A might have now?"

"I have some locked in my room, but they're either mostly empty or filled with just the same stuff the one you guys found was filled with. Plus, I have the key," Alison answered.

"And that's all?" Spencer asked. Both Hanna and Aria looked at Alison with a strange look that I didn't catch on to.

"That's all," Ali answered stiffly.

"Then A is probably going to make you do something or make it look like you did something," Spencer reasoned.

"Probably," Alison agreed, "but can we talk about this all later, please?" Spencer just nodded in response.

"Um, by the way guys, I have this thing to do tonight," Hanna brought up suddenly, giving me a bad feeling in my stomach. Tonight was Hanna's night to have Alison over.

"Well, so do I," Aria admitted.

"I'm going to be with Toby," Spencer added. Everyone looked to me, and I gave them all my best smile that I could muster.

"I don't have anything," I stated. "Perks to being single I guess. You can stay with me again tonight, Ali."

"Thanks, Em," Hanna said, "I totally forgot that I had plans tonight and I can't really cancel them…"

"Yeah, thanks, Em," Alison added.

"Don't worry about it," I answered. As we walked, the conversation changed, but all I could think about was tonight. Maybe I would be able to sleep again, but then maybe I wouldn't be able to. I thought about earlier, when I woke up in Ali's embrace. It was the most comfortable embrace I'd ever been in. I was starting to feel more and more comfortable around her again. Suddenly, my phone started ringing, and everyone looked at me, worried. I glanced down at it and before I answered it, I assured them, "It's Paige."

Everyone went back to their conversation as I answered the call, but Ali watched me curiously. I pretended not to see her doing that. "Hey, Em."

"Hey, Paige," I answered, "what's up?"

"Do you want to hang out tonight?" Paige asked. "Look, I know that you don't trust me anymore, but I figured that they only way you can find out if you can trust me is to trust me for a little bit, right? So maybe we can just go for dinner and talk. What do you think?"

"I can't tonight, Paige," I told her, feeling torn. Obviously, I _had_ to be with Ali tonight, but if Hanna hadn't had plans tonight, would I have said yes to Paige?

"Tomorrow, then?" Paige pleaded on the other end of the line. I pretended like Alison wasn't staring at me intently.

"Sure, tomorrow."

"Great! See you then," Paige said.

"Wait, Paige," I interrupted, before she could hang up. "This isn't a date, okay? I think we really need to talk, but it's… it's not a date, alright?"

The silence on the other end of the line made me think that I must've caught Paige completely off guard. "Oh, alright. Well, see you tomorrow, then."

I hung up, and slipped my phone into my pocket. When I looked back at my friends, they were all staring at me. "Do you think you'll officially end it? Like… completely?" Aria asked. Though they were all looking at me intently, Alison looked the most curious, which only caught me be surprise a little bit.

"Probably," I admitted. "I made a deal with her and she promised me that she'd do her side of it, and I told her that if she didn't, I wouldn't ever be able to really forgive her. And I haven't forgiven her, and I can't have us both thinking that it's just going to roll by. Because it's not."

"Good for you, Em," Hanna said, nodding proudly. I gave Hanna a half smile in response. Ali gave me an encouraging smile, as if telling me that I could do it. Maybe she could sense that it was hard for me to think of completely saying goodbye to Paige. Honestly, I was a little surprised that she hadn't said anything bad about Paige the moment I got the call. She really was acting like a totally changed person. And really, I shouldn't be surprised that she was changed, like she said, especially after last night.

I gave her a grateful smile and we continued our walk to school.

We split up when we got to the school, but I stayed with Spencer while she called Toby. "Hey, did you see anything?" Spencer sighed. "Maybe you're right. Thanks again. I'll see you later."

"What'd he say?" I asked, frowning.

"He said that A probably watches us the most obviously when tons of people are around. Other times, for all we know, A might have hidden cameras everywhere," Spencer stated, shrugging. "Unfortunately, it's hardest to catch a villain hiding in plain sight."

"Sometimes," I agreed, nodding. "I've got to get to chem.. See you at lunch."

_AAA_

"Okay, spill," Aria and Hanna demanded when we got to lunch later. Where was Emily when I needed her?

"Spill about what?" I demanded.

"You and Emily!" Hanna exclaimed.

"Where is Emily, by the way?" I asked, trying to change the topic and looking around.

"Alison," Aria snapped, getting me to look at her with a glare. "Come on, you can trust us!"

"Look, I _don't_ know what's going to happen with me and Emily, alright?" I whispered harshly at them. I didn't want to talk about this right now. Not without Emily.

"Fine, but you like her, right?" Hanna demanded.

"Hey guys, what are we talking about?" Emily asked, coming up and sitting next to me.

"Well, we were talking about—"

I quickly cut Hanna off by saying, "Hanna and Caleb." Hanna shot me a glare, and I returned it with a look that said, 'You don't talk about Emily yet, and I won't talk about Caleb yet'. I think she got the message.

"But, I don't want to talk about that anymore," Hanna stated, before Emily could say anything about the topic. Emily just gave us all a confused look.

"Okay," she muttered. "So where's Spencer?"

"Toby brought her lunch," Aria answered, smiling.

"Aw, that's sweet," Emily commented, smiling as well.

Hanna suddenly decided to ask Emily, "Have you talked to Paige?" Now she shot me a look that told me that she had one upped me. I narrowed my eyes evilly at her. I wasn't used to having Hanna be a challenge, but I had to get used to it now, because I wasn't the bitch that would try to bring her down to her place. I had to prove to all of my friends that I'd changed.

"No," Emily answered firmly, "I'm not going to talk to her about anything until tomorrow night."

"Sorry that I have plans tonight," Hanna apologized, "or else you could just get it over with tonight."

"It's fine," Emily insisted, "I'd rather not talk to Paige tonight anyway. You actually just saved me another day."

"How do you think she'll take it?" Aria asked Emily, a look of concern etched onto her face. I looked at Emily, wondering the same thing.

"Probably not too well," Emily answered, sighing. "I'll tell you all what happens on Wednesday I guess."

As lunch drew to an end, we all split up, and I headed to my next class. It was always weird going to classes without any of my friends. I had to deal with the weird stares from people, and I didn't talk to anyone. I did my work and stayed silent, and that was one of the new parts of Alison DiLaurentis.

Paige had this class with me, and since I started back at school, she hadn't said a thing to me. However, today, she came over to me as soon as I walked into the class. "Alison," she said, as if getting my attention, even though I had already stopped in my tracks and was staring at her.

"Paige," I greeted, avoiding using the term "Pigskin". Anything bad that I said to Paige would obviously be reported to Emily tomorrow, so I had to keep it polite.

"Whatever you're doing to break me and Emily up, _stop_," Paige growled. "You don't know me, and I _love_ Emily."

"You're right. I don't know you. Also, I don't doubt that you love her. I'm sorry if I did something to make you think that I was trying to break you two up. I haven't said half a word about you since we talked before, I swear. I really am sorry for how I bullied you, Paige, whether you believe me or not. And I appreciate what you did for Em," I stated politely, referring to Paige giving Emily names.

Paige stared at me incredulously, like she didn't believe that I could be a decent person.

"Class is starting soon," I stated, before stepping around her and heading to my desk. I inhaled deeply and clenched my teeth. Everything inside of me wanted to attack that bitch and tell her to leave Emily the hell alone, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. I set my books down on my desk and let out the breath I'd just taken in.

Paige sat down in her own seat and looked across the room at me with a look of confusion on her face. I flashed her a sad smile, and the opened up my work for this class.

After school, I met up with Emily at her car. "Hey, you should've waited for me in front of the school."

"I didn't want to run into Paige," I admitted.

"What?" Emily asked, confused.

"She approached me after lunch, convinced that I was trying to break you two up," I told Emily.

"What did you say?" Emily asked carefully, unlocking the passenger door for me and moving over to the driver's entrance door.

"I told her that I wasn't and that I really was sorry for bullying her such a long time ago," I answered honestly. "I wasn't going to start another problem. We've got one too many. Although I am a little annoyed that she thought I would do that. Of course, it's just another _wonderful_ eye opener to what a bitch I once was."

Emily gave me a smile, which I was a little surprised to receive. "You know, you really are a changed person."

"I'm trying to be the best side of me all the time. The side of me that you used to always be able to see," I corrected. "I'm not really that different, besides the fact that I've realized that everyone hated who I used to be."

"Well either way, I like this new Alison," Emily stated, and I felt my cheeks turn pink as I smiled. How was she already making me blush like this? Since when had Emily had this affect on me? I seemed to have always had it on her, but the other way around? "Do you want to go see a movie or go to the mall or something before we go back to my place? I'm starting to feel like I have no life with how much I stay home."

I chuckled. "Let's go see a movie. One of the old black and white ones," I suggested, and Emily smiled in response. She started driving off, and I smiled to myself. This was going perfectly.

* * *

**Awh awh :)**

**Likee? Lovee? Hatee? PULEASE let me know in a quick review, or a PM :D ALSO, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana and if you tweet me that you read this story I will FOLLOW YOU BACK =D**

**Quick, random thing for today - I don't have lots of time to talk! So, earlier, I moved tons of pictures from my iMac computer to my family's server, and cleared up five GBs total, right? I moved like 13,000 pictures. So then, I plug my phone in and try to move 6,000 pictures onto the iMac... and after 3,000, all five GBs are taken up again! What the hell? I'm so pissed off about it, because now I have like no picture space and it's driving me craaaazy :/ Maybe I'll just move those 3,000 onto the server and then put the rest on the computer. bleh. Lol, I take lots of pictures and selfies and I save Demi pics a lot and Naya pics and Dianna pics and Lea pics and Heather pics and Sasha pics and Shay pics... yeah i think you get it...**

**Lol!**

**Have a great night my lovelies, and a wonderful weekend! Please review ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: I got all of your reviews from my last chapter, but I wasn't able to reply to any of them this weekend :( I was helping freshmen all weekend if you remember... So yeah, I apologize. I loved all of your reviews, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH =D Also, to the guest to just recently reviewed and pointed out how the girls walked to school and then Emily had her car later... xD That was totes a test to see who was paying attention ;) You win, Guest. I guess I need to pay more attention when I'm writing haha xD In my defense, I probably wrote half of that chapter at night and the other half the next morning, lol. Sorry for that awkward mistake. Maybe A broke into my story and drove Emily's car to school :)**

**Now, since you all are so awesome, here is a nice long chapter for you all... :)**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Stop moving, you're making this harder than it should be," I told Ali, chuckling as I tried to paint her toenails. We hadn't done each other's nails in forever, and when we got back from the movies, we decided that we should.

"I'm not moving," Alison teased, even though I knew that she was. I rolled my eyes playfully at her as I finished up her last nail.

"There," I said, once I'd finished. They were pink now, the color that Ali had picked.

"Can I do yours now?" Ali asked, smiling at me. I smiled back and nodded. We switched places so that I was on the bed stretching out my feet, and she was sitting at the end with the nail polish, making sure that she didn't mess hers up. "What about blue?" she asked, holding up the blue nail polish. I nodded my agreement and she started painting my nails.

"Ali?" I asked carefully. I got a questioning look from the blonde that told me to ask my question. "Do you wanna talk about last night?"

"If you want to, sure," she answered, keeping her eyes on my nails as she carefully painted them blue. I could almost feel her tensing, but I knew that we had to talk about it at some point.

"Well first of all, thanks. I never would've been able to sleep," I admitted.

"I know," Ali agreed, not saying anything else.

"Look, Ali, I know that you said that you liked me back, even if just a little bit, when I liked you before you disappeared," I started, not exactly sure what I was supposed to be saying.

"Yep…"

"But… do you _still_ like me like that?" I asked, bracing myself for the answer. Ali froze, even though I was pretty sure that she'd been expecting that question. She carefully put the nail polish brush back into its bottle and sealed it tightly before looking at me from the other end of the bed.

"I think so," she admitted. "I've never really been good with feelings, Em." I searched her face carefully, and I saw no sign that she was lying. "Do _you_ still like me like that?"

I swallowed visibly. This was the moment to admit to myself, and to Alison, that I did still have feelings for her like that. I averted my eyes from hers and nodded carefully. I felt Alison take my hand, I looked up at her. She squeezed my hand and smiled at me.

"We'll figure this out, okay?" she said. "We don't have to do it right now."

I nodded, and she opened the nail polish, going back to coating my nails in blue paint.

When both of our nails were done and dry, we talked about Hanna and Caleb. I told Ali the stuff about him that she didn't know, because at first she seemed to think that he was kind of sketchy. I assured her that he was actually a good guy, and she seemed to feel a little more at ease about him afterward.

We had another boring dinner with my mom, and we watched a couple of movies. And by the time the night rolled around, both of us seemed to feel entirely comfortable around each other. And I was so glad.

After we had both showered and gotten ready for bed, we crawled into our sides of my bed and got under the covers. At first, we didn't talk or do anything but lie there. After a few silent minutes, though, Ali asked, "Are you going to be able to sleep okay?"

"I don't know," I answered, feeling the tension between us reappearing. I bit my lip nervously, because all I wanted was for her to wrap me in her arms and hold me, like the previous night. But I couldn't expect her to do that again.

So we faced the opposite directions and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to fall asleep. But the longer I laid there, the more awake I became. I thought about Ali and what A had planned for her. I remembered that Mona was also out for Alison, and I started to feel terrified for her. My Alison… or whatever she was… I didn't want anything to happen to her.

I thought that she must've fallen asleep, but I heard her call out quietly, "Em?"

"Ali?" I countered, opening my eyes finally and staring into the dark of my room.

"I can't sleep," the blonde behind me whispered.

"Neither can I," I admitted, rolling over so that I was facing Alison's back. She rolled over as well, and we were facing each other. A bit of hair fell onto her face, and I carefully reached out and brushed it away. I withdrew my hand immediately though, and just looked into Alison's eyes.

"I'm scared," she whispered, sounding like she might cry. "For myself. For all of us. I've always been scared, but it's getting harder to hide it."

"You don't have to hide it around me," I promised, shaking my head slightly.

"Of course I do," Alison whispered back, "you're hardly getting any sleep at night."

"I sleep better when you're here," I admitted, frowning. "But Ali, you are allowed to be scared. We're all scared."

"I've been scared for four years," Ali reminded me, and it sounded like she was choking up. "I've been being threatened by A for two more years than you all have. It's changed me. I'm never going to be the same. I'm always going to feel the need to be one step ahead of everyone. I'm always going to jump when someone comes to the door."

"And you can't help that," I interrupted before she could continue to list things. "Someone bad is doing that to you, to all of us. The important thing is that we're all here for each other, and we always will be. And maybe some good can come out of A changing you."

"Like me not being a bitch?" Ali grumbled, tearing her eyes away from mine. My hand navigated itself to Ali's cheek, and once she felt my touch, her eyes bounced back over to mine.

"Like you being yourself," I corrected. "You were never yourself to anyone, Ali. You wore masks all the time. It's like you had a different one for every person. You had one mask for when you talked to me, another when you talked to Hanna, another for Spencer. We all saw different people. But now, we're all seeing _you_."

"It's really hard to make that the light of all of this," Alison muttered, her voice sounding a little bitter all of the sudden.

"I'm not trying to make light of anything," I argued, my voice hardening only a tiny bit. "I'm just saying, it's nice to see the real you."

"How do you know this is the real me?" Alison countered, quirking up an eyebrow.

I smirked slightly. "Because I can see the tears in your eyes. Real ones."

"Maybe I just really good at making myself cry," Ali tried to joke, but as she did, a tear slipped out of her eye and fell sideways down her face with gravity. She sniffed and immediately wiped the tear away.

"You shouldn't be ashamed to cry, Ali," I insisted, but she shook her head.

"I'm not ashamed to cry," she promised me. "I'm afraid to cry. When people know what makes you cry, it isn't hard for them to use it against you."

"I'm the only one here," I reminded her. "You can cry if you want to."

Ali's arms suddenly wrapped around my waist, and she pulled me closer to her. She didn't kiss me, though, she buried her face into my neck. I felt a few of her tears on my skin, and I couldn't help but smile a little, feeling proud. Ali had come a long way.

I didn't know how long Ali cried, because I fell asleep in our embrace. When I woke up, Ali's head was resting on my chest, and I could hear her peaceful, even breathing. I closed my eyes again, wanting to just lay here and enjoy this moment. Unfortunately, as soon as my eyes slipped closed, my alarm went off, telling me that it was time to get up and get ready for school.

And it reminded me that tonight was the night that I had to officially end things with Paige. I glanced down at the blonde next to me, who was starting to stir at the sound of the alarm. I carefully pulled away from her and turned the alarm off. "Morning, sleepy head," I teased as Ali rolled over onto her back.

"Wow, I slept like a rock," she muttered.

"So did I," I admitted, getting up and out of my bed. "Should we stop at your place on the way to school so that you can grab some clothes?"

"Sounds good," Ali agreed. "If I wear your clothes to school again, Hanna is going to throw a conniption fit."

I let out a light laugh, and we started to get ready.

When I was all ready and Ali only needed to get dressed, we grabbed our stuff and drove down the street to her place. When we got there, we saw her dad leaving for work. "There's my Alison," he said, grabbing her in a hug once we got out of the car.

"Sorry, dad, I just haven't really wanted to wait up for you by myself," Ali apologized. "You have to work so late."

"I know, and I'm going to try and get the office to cut my hours back a little bit, but they need me there," her dad stated, frowning.

"I understand, dad," Alison insisted, shrugging the problem off.

"I need to head to work now, actually. When I can get a night off, we'll have dinner, okay?" he asked his daughter, who nodded with a smile. "Ah Emily, thanks for taking such good care of my daughter."

I smiled and nodded at him. He nodded back and got into his car before driving off. Alison sighed as she watched his car go. "It's so weird. It's like he's my dad, but he's not."

I gave her a sympathetic look. "C'mon, we don't want to be late."

We went into Ali's house and she got changed. She also decided to throw some of her clothes into a large shoulder bag. She said she could probably rely on that many for a week max, and then she could just come switch them out. It was only then that I realized how scared Ali actually was of her own house.

"You can grab it out of my car after school before you and Aria leave," I told her as she put it in the backseat of my car.

"Thanks," she thanked me, giving me a sweet smile that I couldn't help but return.

School was lame and lunch was boring. I only had one class, English, with Ali, but it was with all of the girls, so it was relatively normal. We didn't get any A texts. No one was approached by a fuming Paige, and no one had a run in with mysterious Mona or any of her team of Ali Haters. Everyone seemed to be having a perfect day.

At the end of the day, I gave Alison her bag of clothes and she left with Aria, who had elected to skip volunteering at Radley to avoid me having to take on a third night with Alison. Especially considering that I had plans with Paige, though I wasn't at all excited about them.

I went home after school and did my homework. Then I got ready for my thing with Paige and drove to the Grille, where she'd texted me earlier to meet her. I was a little nervous for how this whole thing was going to go, but I had to do it. I just hoped that Paige wasn't looking too far into the bright side of what might happen during this dinner.

When I got to the Grille, I spotted Paige sitting at a table waiting for me. She smiled as soon as she saw me, and I returned it with a small one of my own. I sat across from her. "Hey," I greeted.

"Hey!" Paige exclaimed happily. "You've been pretty busy lately, haven't you?"

I nodded. "Alison hasn't really wanted to be alone and the other girls are always busy."

"Does it feel good to be busy again?" Paige asked, obviously referring to this dinner.

"Paige, we really need to talk," I said tentatively, and she must've noticed.

"So this really isn't a date?" Paige asked, letting out a light sigh. I shook my head.

"No, it's not," I confirmed. "Paige, I think that we both need to see different people. Go different ways."

"Don't you love me, Emily? We had so many plans together," Paige reminded me.

"I can't go through with those anymore, Paige. Remember? My shoulder is screwing those plans up by itself. But Paige, you ruined the trust I had placed in you. I told you that I wouldn't communicate with Alison if you didn't turn her in, and what did you do right away?" I reminded her.

"I was trying to keep you safe," Paige argued.

"It doesn't matter why you did it, Paige, because I shared a really big secret with you and you ruined it," I stated. "Look, I'm always going to have some feelings toward you, but I can't love you. Not anymore. I need to be careful where I place my heart."

"Are you going to try and place it with Alison?" Paige demanded, leaning back a little in her chair and looking at me challengingly. I gave her a confused look.

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on, tell me that she has nothing to do with you breaking up with me," Paige commanded.

"She doesn't," I exclaimed, sitting up straighter. "Paige, Ali doesn't control me, okay? And she hasn't said a word to me about breaking up with you, anyway. Surprise, surprise, you've managed to mess this up all by yourself."

"Fine," Paige muttered, standing up. "We're officially done, then?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Good to know. See you in passing, I guess," Paige said bitterly, and then she disappeared. I felt tears coming to my eyes and I took a deep, shaky breath.

"Can I get you something?" a waitress suddenly asked me.

"Um, no. I need to go, actually, sorry," I answered, shaking my head and leaving.

_AAA_

Eight-thirty, and Aria was already asleep. Emily and I must've been the only ones with sleeping problems. I couldn't sleep, though, and all I could think about was Emily and Paige. I was pacing through Aria's room, and I finally decided to call Emily. She should be done with her dinner with Paige by now anyway.

No answer.

I tried again, and it went straight to voicemail.

I probably tried to call her a dozen times, and then I started to get really worried about her. What if Paige was part of the A team, or Mona's team? I was starting to freak out by now. "Aria?" I called to my sleeping friend. She didn't budge, which told me that she was completely passed out.

I inhaled deeply and glanced around the room. I grabbed my backpack and retrieved my journal, and then I went to Aria's purse and grabbed one of her purses. I slipped my journal in it and then borrowed Aria's keys as well. I really shouldn't have been doing this, my friends would kill me, but I was way too worried about Emily to stop myself.

Once I had the essentials for leaving the house, I snuck out of the place and borrowed Aria's car. I hadn't gotten a license, but I knew how to drive. As long as someone didn't pull me over, I would be fine.

First, I drove to Emily's house and knocked on the front door. Her mom answered the door. "Oh, hello Alison. What are you doing here?"

"Is Emily here?" I asked, hoping and hoping that she would say yes.

"No, I think she's still out with Paige," Mrs. Fields answered, frowning. "Why, is something wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," I insisted. "Just needed to talk to her. Bye, Mrs. Fields."

I got back into Aria's car and went to the Grille. I was pretty sure that was the only place to have dinner around here, so I figured that if they were still somewhere together, that's where they were.

They weren't though. As I was double checking the place, a waitress approached me. "Can I help you?"

"Uh, did you see an eighteen year old girl in here earlier? Dark hair, swimmer body? She would've been here with another girl," I explained.

"Oh yeah, I remember them. The one with lighter hair stormed out on her, and the one with dark hair almost cried and then left just a minute after her. They were only here for like five minutes," the waitress answered. Man, people were chatty, and observant.

"She didn't say where she was going, did she?" I asked quickly.

"She just said that she had to go," the waitress answered, shrugging. I nodded, and then I was gone and back in Aria's car. Where would Emily have gone after breaking up with Paige if she didn't go home? I went through dozens of places in my mind, but vetoed each one as unlikely. And then I thought of one that might be realistic.

I drove a ways, and then found myself outside of Rosewood High. I grabbed my purse and got out of the car, locking it behind me. It was dark and no one was around, so I was a little freaked out as I walked toward the school. I couldn't get in through the front, so I walked around the building until I got to the gym wing entrance. One of the doors was propped open.

I let myself in, leaving the door propped, and found my way to the pool. Sure enough, when I walked in, Emily was sitting on the edge of the pool. Her pants were rolled up so that her feet and lower legs could dangle into the water. "Hi," I said quietly as I walked in. Emily's head jerked around.

"What are you doing here?" Emily demanded. "Where is Aria?"

"Sleeping, at her house," I admitted. "I borrowed her car."

"Why?" Emily demanded.

I bit my lip. "I was worried about you. I called you like fifteen times."

"Oh," she said, sounding actually surprised, "I really didn't hear it go off. My phone must be on vibrate." She glanced at her own purse which was sitting a few feet away from her. I slowly walked over to her and sat down next to her, slipping off my shoes and lowering my feet into the water as well.

"It didn't go well?" I asked carefully.

"No, it didn't," Emily confirmed. "It just really hurts to hurt her."

"I know what you mean," I told her, and I really did. "But it was better to let her go than to give her hope if you never planned to go back to her."

"I know," Emily agreed, nodding. "She still thinks you got me to do it, though."

I sighed. "Figures. I don't think her opinion of me will ever change."

"Will your opinion of her ever change?" Emily asked, glancing at me pointedly.

"It has, a little bit. I mean, I saw how happy she made you. Even if I still think that she's obnoxious and annoying… she made you happy when I couldn't. I'm actually a little grateful toward her. Not that she would believe me if I told her that," I muttered, shrugging.

"Well, some of the times I had with her were the best I'd had during this mess we've been stuck in," Emily admitted. "I can't be with her anymore, but it's sad to let her go."

I reached over and took her hand supportively. She met my eyes and squeezed her hand.

"Aria is going to kill you," Emily told me, and I smiled slyly.

"She'll never know. I'll be back before morning," I promised her. "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay." I nudged her foot in the water with mine, and we started a small game of footsie in the water.

"Well, I'm okay," she insisted, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"No you're not," I argued. "You don't need to be ashamed to cry."

She gave me an amused look for returning her advice back to her. "I don't, huh?"

"Nope, I'm the only one here," I reminded her, chuckling. She leaned her head on my shoulder, something I wasn't expecting, and sighed.

"Thanks for coming to check on me," she whispered. "How'd you know I'd be here?"

"Because the pool is your special place. If it weren't for your shoulder, you'd probably be swimming right now, too," I reasoned.

"You're probably right."

I thought for a moment. "Tell you what, as soon as you can swim again, we'll come here together and we'll swim _all day_."

Emily let out a laugh that almost sounded like a giggle, and I smiled to myself proudly. I got that giggle out of her. Me, just me.

"I'm sorry about Paige. I mean for years ago when I bullied her and turned her into the person who hated me enough to betray your trust," I whispered, figuring that would need to be said before she could really feel okay about this.

"I wasn't blaming you," Emily admitted.

"You would have, though, if you ever started to regret it," I promised her, "and I just wanted to apologize before that happened. And if you don't want me to apologize for that, I'm sure I can come up with a billion other things to say that I'm sorry for."

"You did a lot of bad things, Ali," Emily stated, "but in the end, you're the only person who saw me for who I really was. Sometimes I feel like you're still the only one who understands me."

"Funny, I feel the same way about you," I admitted. "I always have. You always looked at me in a special light."

"Yeah, but did you really used to think that I was the only one who understood you? I mean, most of the time I was looking at a mask," Emily reminded me, pulling her head off of my shoulder and meeting my eyes.

I swallowed thickly and found myself making a decision to do something that I really didn't want to do. "Emily, you need to know some things."

"Like what?" she asked, concerned.

"Things about me, about us," I said, reaching for my purse.

"What things? Why?" Emily asked, sounding really worried.

"Don't be worried," I said, trying to calm her down. "Why? Because I can't explain to you how I feel about you."

Emily gave me a confused look, and I reached into my purse, or really, Aria's purse, and retrieved my notebook. I set the bag down and held the book in both of my hands.

"I thought you didn't have anymore journals?" Emily asked carefully.

"This one is a lot different," I whispered. "I can't tell you what's in here, you have to read it for yourself. The whole thing. And then you can do whatever you want, talk to me about it, don't… I'll understand no matter what you do."

"Alison, what's in that?" Emily demanded in a quiet voice.

I handed it to her. "Don't open it until I'm gone. In fact, you probably shouldn't read it until you get home. Read the whole thing, don't stop in the middle, okay? You have to read the whole thing."

"Ali—"

"I'm gonna go. Don't worry, Aria will never know that I was gone," I promised, grabbing my purse and practically bolting from the place.

_EEE_

I watched Alison run out of the pool area, and I swallowed nervously and opened her journal to the first page. In her careful handwriting was my name. Just my name. _Emily._

I took her advice and closed the thing. I wouldn't read it until I was home. I would read it all tonight, because I probably wasn't going to be able to sleep anyway.

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**Ohhh emmm geee Emily's got the journal you guys! #EmilysGotTheJournal**

**Please review and leave me your thoughts =D Or you can PM me your thoughts instead =D ALSO, follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana and tweet me that you read this for a follow back! ALSO, if you tweet me with #EmilysGotTheJournal I'll give you a shoutout bc you're extra cool if you do that lol.**

**I am super tired and I want to veg so... skipping over my random stuff haha...**

**Goodnight lovelies! Please review =D**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: This chapter is exactly 2,222 words long haha :) It's late, and I kind of want to work out right now in the middle of the night (lol weird right?) so I'm going to make both my A/N's short! Remember, 100th reviewer gets a shoutout!**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

_Emily and I were studying in the French room today. Well, Em was studying, and I was just looking at French postcards. Oh how I wish I could go to France. Truthfully, what I told Emily today was absolutely what I want. I'd love to disappear to France with just her, forever. I might never admit that to her, though. Lately, I haven't really been able to sort my feelings around her. Obviously, she likes me, but I have no idea whether or not I'm returning those feeling._

_I've been struggling back and forth with this, as the other pages of this journal are undoubtedly showing. My brain just gets so fuzzy around Emily. I keep considering talking to her about it, but I think that would be a really bad idea. She can't know that I'm even considering this. It would possibly ruin everything._

I was about thirty pages in Alison's journal, and so far, it was clear to me that this journal was dedicated specifically to me. Ali's place to talk about me and only me. Why? It was starting to become clear to me that this journal's purpose started as just a place for Ali to talk about my biggest secret, but had turned itself into a journal about one of Ali's biggest secrets— that she may have returned those feelings to me.

It was getting late, but I had to finish this journal. After reading her stories about me in her coded journal, this was a big change. These entries had a whole different tone to them, like she never planned on anyone getting a hold of the journal.

I kept reading, flipping through the pages like my life depended on it. They got more and more secretive sounding, like Ali was hiding something bigger and bigger every time she wrote a new entry.

And then she disappeared.

_Now it's been ten days since I left. I know before I said that it would be hard to stay away, but as long as I don't think about my friends too much, it shouldn't be too bad. The problem is, this is the only journal I have to write in, and I don't want to turn it into a journal about me hiding. I need it to stay my Emily Journal. Which is why as long as I have this, I can't just forget about Emily._

Reading all of these entries felt like more than me reading a journal. It was almost like I was looking into Alison's thoughts. Like I was reading into her soul, and she wanted me to. She had given this to me, and I was still in awe over just that much.

I was almost afraid of what was coming in the next pages though. Three years of her writing about me? For most of that time, she wasn't around me at all, or she was just watching from a distance. How could she have written about me?

The only way I was going to find out was to keep reading. And I did, I kept reading. I read through the first year, the entries of which were fewer and further between. They didn't start to get written more often until Hanna's accident, which as I recalled, was when Ali said she came back to Rosewood for the first time. To see Hanna.

_I saw Hanna today. She'll probably think it was a hallucination that she saw me, though. She's on a bunch of meds. I can't believe A hit her with a car. If they find out who that bitch is, I will make her or his life a living hell. I'll become A's A. Whatever it takes._

_But I can't completely stay gone, now. I have to protect them, somehow. If I can._

_I saw Emily, too, but she didn't see me. I was sneaking around, doing a good job of keeping myself on the down low, and I saw her. Just in passing, but man she's still so gorgeous. My heart did this thing like a flutter when I saw her._

_When I saw her, that's when I knew that I could never leave her completely. There's just something about Emily that makes feel like I have to stay. If she knew I was alive and here, she would tell me to stay. To come back home. While I can't do that just yet, I can still try to help them. Maybe I can do my own scouting for A while they're doing what they're planning._

_And maybe one day, I can come home._

I was starting to tear up now, because as I read these entries, I realized just how hard it was for Alison to stay away. Also, I can sort of see why she felt like she had to stay gone. She seemed so much less cowardly when I read through her experiences like this.

Every time she mentioned me, though, my heart beat faster. This was a legitimate journal that she wrote to express her feelings for me, and that terrified me and yet excited me at the same time. I was just afraid to get to the end of it. What would be waiting for me there?

I spent the entire night reading, and well into the morning. I didn't leave for school, which might've not been the best idea, but I couldn't stop reading these, I just couldn't.

I got to the Ravenswood entry, and Ali talked about her plan to get CeCe to wear a red coat to help her save me.

_I am so grateful to CeCe right now. Without her, I may not have been able to turn off that saw. And if I hadn't turned it off, I would never have forgiven myself if Emily had died. Never. I probably would've hopped on a plane and gone into hiding forever._

_I'm so glad she's okay though. I led them to Ezra's apartment. Right now they think he's A, and I'm not even sure if he is or not. I'm leaning toward not, because he's probably just still writing that book. But I can't tell for sure one way or the other._

_CeCe is driving me back to Rosewood right now, and we'll probably get there before the girls, because I saw someone slashing one of their tires. I don't know who it was, but whoever it was gave me a head start to disappear before they can find me._

_I'm just so relieved that I saved Em. _

I was nearly in tears now, and I flipped forward, reading a couple of pages. Then I got to a new page, one that looked different. This page was a little wrinkly, which led me to believe that whenever Alison wrote it, she either spilled water on the paper or she was crying.

Taking a deep breath, I began to read.

_I saw Emily. We met. Shana helped me set it up. We didn't get to talk much, but she said the words I knew she would say. That I could come home, that she would help me. She gave me a hug and it was the most real thing I've felt since I left almost three years ago._

_Spencer showed up, though, of course, and I bolted. I felt so bad for leaving Emily like that, but I can't come home yet._

_Seeing Emily again was crazy. I'm not even sure if I'm thinking straight, but there is only a few things that I can even think about at all right now. Emily. Emily and our past._

_I'm crying right now, obviously. I'll probably deny this later, or look back and think that I must've just been hysterical, but it's been a long time coming and I might as well say this somewhere once._

_But I _love_ Emily._

_As more than a friend. I don't know if I always have, but seeing her again made me realize how badly I need her. I can't just come back and enter my old life again, but if I could, I would. I need Emily back. I need her to be mine again._

_And now I know for sure… I want to be hers, and that's something I've never been._

_Like I said, I'll probably go back to being completely confused in a couple of days, but at least I said it once._

That was the last entry in the journal, and it had cued my tears. I was full out crying now, and all I could tell myself was to call Ali. Had to talk to her now.

So I grabbed my phone and dialed, hoping that she wasn't in a class right now.

_AAA_

It was lunch time, and Emily still hadn't shown up. I was having a near mental breakdown. Was she still reading? What did she think of everything I said in there? Though I hadn't read every entry yet, I could recall what the last one was. That was the page where I wrote that I loved her. I had read it a billion times over after I wrote it, and it made less and less sense every time.

Now that I was back here, though, and Emily was always so close to me, it started to feel like it actually made perfect sense that I could love Emily.

And here I was, still being super confused.

"Hey, has anyone tried calling Em?" Aria asked, sitting down with the rest of us. "I'm starting to get worried. What if something happened with Paige yesterday and she's home crying or something?"

"I spoke to her last night," I admitted, "after her thing with Paige. She said that it was hard, but she wasn't breaking down or anything."

"So where is she? Do we think that something happened to her?" Spencer asked, lowering her voice.

"I don't know," Aria answered, shrugging. Hanna shrugged.

"I tried calling her earlier, but she didn't answer."

Suddenly, my phone started ringing. I grabbed it before anyone could see the caller ID. I glanced at it, saw that it was Emily, and declined it. I was freaking out too badly to answer. If it was an emergency, she would text everyone or call someone else next. If it was about me, she would just call me. And I didn't want to talk about me right now.

"Who was that?" Aria questioned.

"My dad," I lied. "I'll call him back later."

"Should we ditch the rest of school and go check on Em?" Spencer asked us all.

"She's probably fine, you guys. I don't blame her for wanting to stay home. After everything that's been happening, and now she's officially broken up with her girlfriend… she probably just needs a day to sleep. She hasn't been getting very much sleep," I told them.

"Was she awake all night when you slept at her place?" Hanna questioned.

My mouth opened and then closed, and then I managed to answer with, "No, she slept fine when I was there. But she said that she was hardly getting any sleep last week. I barely got her to sleep when I was staying over."

"Yeah?" Aria asked.

"How'd you manage to do that?" Hanna asked, giving me a pointed look.

"I just talked to her," I muttered, and my phone rang again. I quickly declined it. I felt a little bad about it, but I couldn't talk to Emily right now.

"Sure, you _just_ talked to her," Hanna teased, rolling her eyes.

"Wait, am I missing something here?" Spencer asked, sounding completely confused.

Aria and Hanna both gave Spencer an incredulous look. "Where have you been, Spence?" Aria questioned. "How haven't you noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Spencer demanded.

"Noticed that Ali and Em are totally hook—"

"Hanna!" I exclaimed. "Shut up!"

Hanna just smirked at me. Spencer looked at me for a long hard moment, and then asked, "You and Emily are doing what?"

"We're not _doing_ anything," I snapped.

"Just each other," Hanna joked, smirking.

I shot her a glare. "We're not hooking up, okay? We've kissed a couple of times and—"

"And she's been keeping a secret journal about Emily since before she disappeared," Aria stated.

"_What_?" Hanna demanded. "Is that what that was that you got out of that locked drawer in your room?"

"Wait, you said you didn't have anymore journals," Spencer said.

"I don't," I snapped, "Emily does."

"What?" Aria asked, completely surprised. "Did you give that to her?"

I nodded. "Which is why she isn't at school today, I'd assume." My phone started to ring again, and Hanna snatched it before I could decline the call.

"And why Emily has called you three times?" Hanna asked, displaying the caller ID to Spencer and Aria as well.

"Don't answer it," I growled. "I'll talk to her later, okay? I'm literally on the verge of having a panic attack without hearing about what she thinks of that journal."

"Ali, what if she gets the wrong idea?" Aria asked carefully.

"Look, I know you guys are just trying to help, but I need time to process this just as much as Emily does. I'll talk to her later," I stated, and they all exchanged doubtful looks. A few seconds later, though, they nodded their consent and I sighed as Hanna passed my phone back to me and the ringing finally stopped.

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**Ali, Ali, Ali... *shakes head***

**So, the actual chapter was 2,222 words until I realized a couple of mistakes and I had to add in some more words and an extra sentence or so. Sigh. Now it's not as cool lol.**

**Like? Love? Hate? Please let me know in a review or a PM! Also follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! And you can still tweet me with #EmilysGotTheJournal and I'll still give you a shoutout =)**

**How did you all enjoy PLL tonight?**

**I promised I would have this up before midnight, and booyah! I did! =D**

**Random thing for tonight! So, I realized that when I thing that I say something weird, I'm really good at forcing myself to change how I say it. I know that totally sounds really weird, but a couple of years ago, I used to say the word "both" really weird. The way I said it made it sound like there was an L in it. Actually, I know some people who do say it that way, it sounds like "bolth"... but anyway, when I realized that I was doing it, I spent about a week forcing myself to say it the way it's supposed to be said, and ever since then, I've never slipped up. Sometimes I just feel really proud of myself for that haha XD**

**Anyway, I think I want to play DDRU... I know, at midnight, I'm so weird. Lol...**

**Goodnight lovelies! Please review :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: This chapter is a little on the short side, but hopefully you'll be more pleased with it than the last chapter =) By the way, thank you all for your amazing reviews on the last chapter :) 100th reviewer gets a nice lil shoutout remember :D**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Yep, nothing's happened to her. Why?" came Spencer's voice through the phone.

"Can you ask her to call me as soon as she can, please? She hasn't been picking up any of my calls," I pleaded.

There seemed to be a moment of hesitation before Spencer replied. "I'll let her know, sure."

"Thank you," I sighed out. I needed to talk to Alison now that I'd read her journal. She ended the call and I flopped back onto my bed. School should be out soon, which meant that Ali would probably call me soon. I had no idea what I needed to say to her, but we had to talk about this now. She'd written that she loved me. Was that still the case?

I waited around for hours, getting no calls from Alison. I was starting to get a little frustrated, and I was finally going to try to call her again when my mom called me down for dinner. Cursing under my breath, I brought my phone downstairs with me in case she finally called back while I was eating.

Why didn't Ali want to talk to me?

I decided that it didn't matter and that I would call her again after dinner.

_AAA_

"You need to call her, Alison," Spencer told me, and I pursed my lips.

"I can't, Spence," I argued. "I'm terrified of what she might say."

"What could be so bad about it?" Spencer asked, shaking her head like she didn't understand. "I thought you said it was about your feelings toward Emily."

"It is," I answered, "but if you'd been in love with someone hopelessly for years and then found out that he might have actually had similar feelings toward you at the same time, wouldn't you be mad? I'm just scared that she is going to wish I'd told her sooner or something."

"Well of course she'll wish that," Spencer stated, but continued talking before I could say anything, "but she won't be mad. You're finally being honest with her. If she's mad at all, it'll be because you haven't talked to her since you gave the thing to her. Because you haven't picked up any of her calls."

Suddenly, my phone began to ring for the first time in a few hours. I glanced down at it and saw Emily's name on my screen.

"Answer the damn phone, Alison!" Spencer exclaimed. I flashed her a glare, and declined the phone call. Then I opened a text message with shaky hands.

**To Emily- I'll come over, okay?**

**From Emily- Why the hell haven't you called me, Ali?**

**To Emily- I'll be there in a few minutes.**

"You have to take me to Emily's," I told Spencer, who gave me a confused look.

"But—"

"No buts. You want me to talk to Emily, right? I'd much rather do it in person than over the phone while you're here eavesdropping," I stated, looking at her pointedly. The brunette huffed and grabbed her keys off of her bed.

"Come on," she muttered, and we both stood and left her room. I was so nervous as we got into her car outside and she started driving us to Emily's place. "Are you going to call me when you want me to pick you up?"

"Sure, I'll do that," I agreed, swallowing thickly. When we pulled up in front of Emily's house, I got out and gave Spencer a quick wave before hurrying up to Emily's front door. I knocked on it, almost afraid of what was coming. Emily answered the door only a few seconds after I knocked, which made me guess that she'd been pacing in front of it waiting for me. "Hi."

"Hey," she returned, her voice sounding just as nervous as I was feeling and a lot less mad than I though it would sound. "Come on in. We need to talk."

I nodded in agreement and followed her inside and upstairs to her bedroom. She sat down on her bed when we got in there, but I stayed standing up. "I am _so_ sorry that I didn't answer any of your phone calls."

"Why didn't you?" Emily demanded, her eyebrows furrowing a little bit.

"I was so terrified of what you would say," I admitted. "I've been freaking out all day. I barely got any sleep last night."

Emily's eyes searched mine for a moment. "Well, I read the whole thing. I can't believe that you kept that the whole time and never told me about it until now."

"I know, neither can I," I admitted. "I should've told you all of those things in there instead of just writing them down and then pushing them away."

Emily sighed and reached behind her on the bed, retrieving my journal. When I saw it, I inhaled sharply, imagining Emily turning through the pages and reading all of my thoughts. "It was like reading into your soul," she whispered in a strange voice.

I swallowed visibly and she looked up at me. After a few seconds, she extended her arm, handing me my journal. I took it carefully and lamely flipped through all of the pages before holding it shut and hugging it against my chest.

"Do you love me?" Emily asked in a strained whisper.

I blinked, and found two tears slip out and roll down my cheeks. I hadn't even been aware that there were any tears waiting to escape. I didn't wipe them away, though, I just looked straight at Emily. "Em… lately, you're all I can ever think of. When I'm not thinking about Mona or A or the police, I'm thinking about you."

"Ali," Emily pushed lightly.

I glanced up at the ceiling, trying to prevent more tears from falling, and then met Emily's eyes again. "I think I do, Em, but I'm so scared to say it."

"What are you so afraid of, Ali?" Emily asked softly, standing up in front of me. I pulled my journal away from where I'd been hugging it against my body and gestured to it.

"I'm scared of what my feelings will do to me," I admitted truthfully. "I'm scared to feel vulnerable. I'm scared to give _anybody_ enough of me for them to really hurt me."

Emily let out a quiet breath, and I couldn't tell if it sounded relieved or upset. She reached out and took the journal out of my hands, and I just bit my lip and watched her. "Alison, you are vulnerable. You just don't let people know that. Showing it or not showing it doesn't change the fact that you are."

"Em…" My voice trailed off as I realized that I didn't know what I had been planning to say. She turned around and walked toward her end table, setting my journal on it carefully, and then she turned back and returned to her place standing in front of me.

"You can trust me, Ali," Emily promised, her voice sounding warm and comforting. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and then I felt Emily's hands wrapping around my own. "I would never do anything to hurt you."

"I know you wouldn't," I agreed, my voice coming out quiet. "But… I'm also… I'm also afraid that if I say… if I say _it_, A or Mona or whoever will have more of a motive to go after you, and I don't want that."

"Hey, if anyone is going after you, then they're going after me, whether you love me or not. Because I'm never going to let anything happen to you. Are you forgetting who ran into your house and attacked the hooded person who was strangling you?"

I opened my eyes and gave her a half smile. "I'm just so scared of everything, Em."

"Well, so am I," she agreed, "but I feel safer when you're here."

I wet my lips nervously with my tongue. "I feel safer with you, too." She searched my face for a few moments, and then I pulled her toward me and into a hug. I sighed contently as I felt her wrap her arms around my waist. I took a deep, albeit shaky, breath, and spoke in a nearly silent whisper. "I love you, Emily."

"I love you, too, Ali," she whispered back, and I melted completely in her embrace. "I never stopped loving you, even when I tried to absolutely hate you. I don't think I'll ever stop loving you."

I pulled halfway out of our hug, her arms staying around my waist and my hands resting on her shoulders, and gave her a grateful smile. "Em?"

"Yeah?" she asked back.

"You were always mine before I was gone, if you know what I mean. I always just felt like you were _my_ Emily," I stated, and Emily just looked at me, a slightly curious expression on her face. "I… I want to try something that I'm not really used to. I want… I want to be _yours_ for once."

A smile grew instantly onto Emily's face. "Okay, then you can be mine."

My heart rate picked up and I couldn't help but smile. "Say that again."

"You are mine," Emily said slowly, grinning at me as she drew me in a little closer to her. "And I am yours."

_EEE_

Ali pressed her lips to mine softly, and my eyes flickered closed as I moved my lips against hers. After a few seconds, we pulled apart to search each other's expressions, and then our lips pressed together again, this time harder. Her hands moved from my shoulders as her arms wrapped around my neck to keep us closer together.

My tongue poked out of my mouth and touched her lips, which she instantly parted. My tongue gingerly touched against hers, and our tongues seemed to twist together. I tried to pull her impossibly closer, and she stepped forward a little bit, causing me to step backwards to stay balanced.

Ali pulled back out of our kiss and searched my face. Then she sighed, "Spencer is waiting for me to call her to pick me up."

"Maybe you can stay here tonight," I said in a shy whisper. "Spencer can bring you your stuff in the morning."

Alison smiled at me and nodded in agreement. She pulled away from me to take out her phone and text Spencer. In the meantime, I went over to my closet and got us both some pajamas to wear. Ali set her phone down when she was done, and I tossed her a tank top and some shorts.

When we were both ready for bed, I realized how tired I was from staying up all night the night before. I climbed into my bed, and Alison flipped off the light before joining me. We laid there, silent and not touching, for a few minutes, and then Alison spoke. "By the way, the girls know about the journal and what it's about."

"They do?" I asked, surprised.

"Aria saw it a few days ago, and she told Spencer and Hanna today when I was being forced to talk about you and me," Ali admitted. "So they sort of know the gist of what's going on."

"I'm sorry I didn't come to school today," I apologized suddenly. "I was just so tired from staying up all night reading."

"You didn't have to do that," Alison said quickly.

"I wasn't going to get any sleep anyway," I answered, letting her know that I didn't care that I'd stayed up all night reading her journal.

"Well, then you should probably get some sleep now," Ali suggested, and I nodded, turning on my side and closing my eyes. Suddenly, I felt Ali's arms snake around my middle and pull me close to her. I sighed happily and tangled my legs with hers under the blankets. "Goodnight, Em."

"Goodnight, Ali. I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

**Yes Yes Yes! =)**

**Likee? Lovvee? Hateee? PLEASE let me know in a review or a PM :D Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! **

**Yay their feelings are more in the open! =D But do not fear, there is more in store for our lovely couple, and their friends. ;)**

**Damn I'm tireed... well, here's my "random" thing for tonight... I may or may not have started dabbling in a new Emison AU story for after I finish CD :3 ;)**

**Goodnight lovelies! Please review! 100th reviewer gets a shoutout!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Here's an update for you all, at 2 AM yay! Hehe...**

**Shoutout to give! 100th reviewer was... badadadada... gimme sec I need to find it I have to count down the reviews to 100 lol yeah one sec... SHOUTOUT TO user Msjanelle32 ! Thank you ALL for your reviews! Seriously, they've been absolutely amazing. Like I woke up and had 106 and now I have 116 and like you guys don't know how grateful I am to all of you!**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

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"So, I take it everything with you two is going well?" Spencer asked, handing Alison her stuff. Ali gave me a look that told me that I was on my own, and then she ran back upstairs to get ready for school.

"I think that finally, everything is going well," I answered, nodding and smiling shyly.

"What'd you guys do last night?" Spencer wondered, raising both of her eyebrows high.

I rolled my eyes. "We just talked and stuff."

"Mmhmm," Spencer answered, giving me a look that told me that she totally didn't believe me.

"We'll see you at school," I said, rolling my eyes again and starting to close to the door.

"Guys," Ali said suddenly, coming down the stairs and still in her borrowed pajamas.

"What's up?" I asked, my eyebrows knitting in concern.

"My journal is gone," she stated, and my mouth went dry. Spencer and I exchanged nervous looks. "But that's not all…"

"What, Ali?" Spencer demanded.

"I had a key in my purse. It opens this locked drawer in my room," Alison stated. "The drawer has two journals full of some of that same stuff that was in that other journal that you guys had before I came back. It's gone."

I swallowed thickly, crossing my arms over my chest nervously. Spencer took a deep breath. "We think A took these things?" Alison shrugged, but the look on her face had the obvious answer. "Okay well, we don't have to worry. There shouldn't be anything in there that A doesn't already know."

"That's not the point, Spence," I objected, because I had already picked up on the problem, like Ali had. "Don't you remember that text A sent Ali? There are things in those journals that could bring a lot of people down."

"Well… they're coded, right?" Spencer asked. Ali's face contorted into a pained expression. "Right? Ali, you coded those journals, didn't you?"

"I had them under lock and key," Alison said in a pleading voice. Spencer huffed and put her hand on her forehead.

"Okay, before we all freak out, let's just think this through. The journal was in my room, which means that A had to have come in last night while Ali and I were sleeping," I stated, though it didn't make me feel any less freaked out. "But the key was at your place, Spence. Did you see anything weird there?"

Spencer shrugged. "The place was locked up all night. A has a lot of ways, though."

"Wait a second, does Melissa still have a key to the house?" Alison interjected. Spencer nodded, and then she sighed.

"Damn it," she growled. "Do we think that Mona's team has got to be A then?"

"I think there's a really good chance," I answered, giving Ali a concerned look. She returned it with one that looked hopeless. I just wanted to wrap her in my arms and promise her that it would all be okay. I couldn't promise that, though. There were too many things that I couldn't control, no matter how badly I wanted to be able to control them.

Spencer sighed. "Okay. We'll talk about this later. Maybe you guys can stop at Ali's house and check to see if those journals are still there?"

"Doubt it," I muttered.

"Just check," Spencer commanded, and I shrugged in response.

"See you at school," I muttered, and then I closed the door as she walked toward her car. I looked at Ali, and she bit her lip nervously.

"I'm going to go get ready. We can stop at my house on the way to school," she muttered, before heading upstairs again. Sighing and feeling slightly depressed at the situation, I made my way into the kitchen and made some toast for me and Ali. A few minutes later, she came downstairs with her backpack and her purse. "I left my bag upstairs. I hope that's okay?"

"Do you want to stay here again tonight?" I asked her.

Ali bit her lip, but this time she didn't look nervous. "If that's okay?"

"Of course it's okay," I assured her, smiling a sweet smile and handing her a slice of toast. She took it with a grateful smile and we started eating on our way out to my car.

A minute later, we stopped in front of Ali's house and hurried to run inside and up to her room. Alison tried the drawer, but it didn't budge. "Either A hasn't been here, or he-she just locked it up again to keep us from checking if it was still there."

I walked over to the desk and searched for a bobby pin. When I found one, I knelt in front of the drawer and stuck the thing in the tiny lock. A few seconds later, the thing clicked.

"Didn't know you could do that," Ali commented.

"Spencer taught us all last year," I admitted, shrugging. I looked at the blonde, telling her that she should do the honors, and she knelt next to me and pulled the drawer open. Two journals sat there, but Ali didn't show any signs of relief. She opened both of them, and there were only a few sentences written in them.

"A took them," Alison stated, sighing sadly. "I'm so screwed. A is probably going to get everything in there out to the public."

"Don't get too worried yet, okay? Maybe Spence can try to get something out of her sister," I suggested.

"Didn't she already try that and get nothing?" Alison reminded me, and I sighed.

"Come on, we're going to be late," I said, taking her hand and standing up. We walked out of her room and downstairs hand in hand. As we walked through her living room, I tried not to remember the events that had taken place just a week ago in here. I tried to speed up my pace without Ali noticing, but she definitely noticed as she squeezed my hand.

We got back into my car and we were both too deep in thought to talk on our way to school.

When we got there, we were immediately ambushed by Spencer and Aria. "Well?" Aria demanded, obviously already caught up on what had happened.

"They're gone," Alison stated, "at least, the ones worth taking."

"We are so screwed," Spencer groaned.

"Hey, do you think you can talk to Melissa again?" I asked, trying to avoid feeling totally hopeless.

Spencer shrugged. "I don't think she wants to talk to me about anything right now. Now that my parents are separated, things are just even weirder between me and Melissa."

"Well, can any of us talk to her?" Aria asked. "Or is that totally a stupid idea?"

"It's not totally stupid," Ali said. "Maybe one of us should. Not me, though. Melissa hates me."

"Where's Hanna?" I asked suddenly, realizing that she should probably be in this conversation as well.

Spencer and Aria shrugged. "We haven't seen her," Aria stated. "I tried calling her, but she didn't pick up. But have any of you noticed that she's been a little weird lately?"

"What do you mean?" Spencer asked.

Aria just shrugged, looking at me for help. I shrugged as well, and tried, "She did change her hair. A year ago, Hanna never would've put black in her hair."

"Also, I'm pretty sure that she's been hanging around with Caleb a _lot_," Aria said.

"So?" Spencer asked. "They did date once, remember that?"

Aria shrugged. "He seemed sort of sketch when we saw him last week. Plus, I'm pretty sure that she was with him when she said she had to do something with her mom."

"She lied to us?" Alison asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

Aria shrugged. "I'm just worried about her. Do you think you can talk to her, Em?"

"I can try," I agreed, not really sure why she thought that me talking to her was the best option.

The bell rang, and everyone in front of the school started to make there way inside. "See you all at lunch?" Spencer asked, and we all nodded in response, and then we dispersed as we made our way into the school.

_AAA_

At lunch, I was the first to sit down at our table. That always made me feel weird, because when you sat alone, people sent you weird looks. I ignored the ones I felt directed toward me, starting to take some bites of the salad that I wasn't hungry for.

Emily was the first to sit down with me at the table. She took her spot across from me. "Are you okay?" she asked immediately.

I shrugged. "I can't help but think that in a few days, everyone that I ever wrote about in those journals will see what I said."

"Well didn't you say that a lot of the entries are similar to the ones in that other journal?" Emily asked. "Most of those were about us four, which really brings us down more than you."

"Yeah, but… some of them in these journals were about other people," I admitted. Those were my worst journals, which is why I'd kept them under lock and key. It was always easier knowing that no one would be able to get to them. "There's some about average people that I only talked to a couple of times. There are a few entries about Paige. Some about Mona… Melissa, Lucas… all of the people who hate me. If everyone at school saw the things that I'd said about them in writing, they would all hate me."

Emily frowned. "Maybe A isn't going to hand those entries out on a silver platter."

"What else would A do? If anything, he-she will demand that I do something horrible in return for the journals back. And if that's true, A will probably still keep copies of all of them," I pointed out, shaking my head. "We just have to brace ourselves for what A is going to do."

Emily sighed, and I knew that it was hard for her to admit that there wasn't any hope. I reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing it lightly.

"Are you two having a moment?" Aria teased as she sat down next to Emily suddenly.

"If by a moment you mean a realization that soon everyone in the school is going to hate my guts even more than they do right now, then yes," I answered sarcastically, pulling my hand away from Emily's.

Aria sighed. "Can we talk about anything else?"

"How about Hanna?" Spencer piped up, sitting down next to me. "Anyone seen her yet?"

We all shook our heads. Emily said, "I tried to call her again, but she didn't pick up. I'm starting to get worried."

"Did anyone try calling Caleb or Hanna's mom?" Spencer asked. We all exchanged looks, and then Emily took out her phone and made a call. We watched her with concerned looks as the phone rung.

"Hey, Caleb," Emily said, once he'd picked up. "Is Hanna with you? No? Well did you see her yesterday at all? She's not at school. Okay, thanks."

"What'd he say?" Aria demanded.

"He was with her last night, and she took a taxi home afterward because she'd been drinking," Emily answered, frowning.

"She's probably laying in bed hung over," Spencer decided, sighing. I frowned, because I was starting to feel worried about Hanna. I knew that at some point she would start reacting to me being back in a negative way. I hoped that this wasn't what that was.

"What do you think, Ali?" Aria asked, probably noticing the distant expression on my face.

I shrugged. "I hope she's alright."

We ate the rest of our lunch in silence, and then we gave each other quiet goodbyes before splitting up again. As I started walking off, though, Emily caught me. "Hey, do you want to go with me to talk to Hanna after school?" she asked.

"She'll probably talk to you more if I'm not there," I stated, shrugging. "But I guess I'm going wherever you're going. I'll just stay downstairs while you talk to her or something."

"Okay," Emily agreed. "See you later."

She flashed me a sweet smile, and I returned it with one of my own, and then we split up. I sighed as she walked away. On one hand, I felt so proud of myself for having admitted all of my feelings toward her, but I didn't feel any less scared. Now, A had even more of a reason to target Emily.

I swallowed thickly, hugging my books to my chest, and hurried to my next class. Would there ever be a time that I could stop being so scared?

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**Not much Emison in this chapter, but don't worry, you'll get it :)**

**I decided to put the Hanna stuff in here, at least some of it :P**

**Like it? Love it? Hate it? Hehe please let me know in a quick review or PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! =D**

**Random thing before I go to bed bc its 2AM... dang it, I forgot. Um. I don't know. Oh oh! It's funny, because some of you are always telling me how obsessed you are with my FF or how you get really obsessive over different FFs and I was just like thinking today like... I may seem all cool and collected (lol not), but when I get into a FF, I get much more obsessive than some of you get. Just saying ;) You should see. I'll review like almost every chapter while I'm catching up (which some of you all do so thanks for that!) and then I'll review a ranting review about how amazing the FF is and it'll be like longer than this A/N is lol... I posted one on my Twitter if you wanna see XD**

**I feel like I had something important to say here, but I can't remember.**

**Oh i remember! I might not update until like Sunday night, guys, because tomorrow I'm leaving for my sister's place. It's my nephew's bday party. So yeah.**

**Goodnight loves! Please review! *hearts hearts for everyone* ;) :D**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: So I know you all are wondering who took Ali's stuff... and we'll get there, but not yet ;) Also I know I said I wasn't updating until Sunday night but... i'm early :P**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

**P.S... my FF glitched out when I finished rereading this and then went back and undid my edits and i'm really tired so I apologize for any mistakes.**

* * *

"So you're just going to wait down here while I go talk to Han?" I asked, looking at Alison. She nodded.

"Yep. Don't worry, I'll just be in the kitchen," she stated, and I nodded. The assurance, however, didn't make me feel any less worried. After everything that had happened, and after Alison admitted her feelings to me, I felt like I had to protect her even more. Like she wanted, she was mine now, and I had to protect her, right?

Not that I hadn't always protected her— I had. But now, it felt like if I didn't, I would hate myself for longer than eternity.

I went upstairs, though, pushing away my worries. I would leave Hanna's door open, that way I could hear downstairs if anything was happening.

When I got to Hanna's door, I knocked lightly. "Han? Are you in there?"

"Em?" Hanna called.

"Yeah, it's me," I answered.

There was a hesitation on the other side of the door, and then Hanna asked, "Is Alison with you?"

"No," I answered, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Come in."

I opened the door and stepped into her room, leaving the door open. I saw her sitting up on her bed, dressed in pajamas. It looked like she hadn't gotten out of bed all day. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just dandy, thank you," Hanna snapped sarcastically.

I blinked, surprised at the harsh tone. "Well, A took all of Ali's journals. The ones that aren't coded."

"Ugh, I don't want to talk about Alison," Hanna snapped, putting her hand on her forehead as she scowled at the wall. I carefully stepped closer to her bed.

"Are you mad at her?" I asked.

"Aren't you?" Hanna asked back.

I shook my head slowly. "Where did this come from? You've been fine around her so far."

"Yeah well I've always been pretty good at pretending to like her," Hanna grumbled. I pursed my lips, because I knew what she meant.

"She's trying to be a different person, Hanna," I insisted. "A better one."

"It doesn't matter. Turning into a better person doesn't change how she treated us before. It doesn't change the fact that every time Ali says something, we're all suddenly supposed to agree with her. If she's really changed, I'd love to see her give up her role as group leader," Hanna growled.

I shook my head. "Hanna, she's not in that role anymore."

"Isn't she?" Hanna argued. "Everyone is so concerned about following Ali's lie of a story, and keeping Ali safe."

"I thought you were on board with all of that?" I snapped. "Hanna, we were all tortured by A, but A nearly _killed_ Ali!"

"_No_, A nearly _killed_ all of us!" Hanna exclaimed. "The difference is, when we survived, we didn't go running into hiding!"

I took a deep breath. "Is that why you changed your hair when she got back? And started dressing like that, and drinking all the time?"

Hanna glared at me. "Everything is not always about Alison, Emily! I know your world has no other purpose than to serve her, but some of us actually do things without having any cause from Alison."

Now, I was incredibly pissed off. "What the hell, Hanna? I don't _serve_ Alison!"

"Have you seen yourself around her, Em?" Hanna demanded. "She has you like putty in her hands!"

"I thought you were okay with what's going on between me and Alison," I stated, trying not to sound like I was about to blow up with anger.

"I was, until I started realizing that Alison probably isn't trying to change. She's just acting like it, and one day, when she has all of us fooled, she spin a three sixty and take up her spot as resident head bitch and puppeteer!" Hanna yelled. I pursed my lips, figuring that Alison could probably hear Hanna from downstairs.

"Okay, fine. You have a problem with Alison being back. Fine. But the girls are worried about you drinking so much and skipping school. And you said that doesn't have to do with Alison, so maybe you can just try to stop whatever is getting you to want to drink. We're all worried about you," I stated. Hanna rolled her eyes and looked away from me. "I guess I'll go now."

I left Hanna's room, closing the door behind me, and went downstairs. "Ali?" I called as I got downstairs. I walked around into the kitchen, and saw Alison sitting on one of the barstools and staring at the counter. I was pretty sure that I saw tears glistening in her eyes. "You heard some of that?"

Ali looked up at me and sniffed, holding back her tears. "Let's just go," she muttered. She was up and headed to the front door in seconds, and I sighed as I followed her out the door and down to my car. When I started driving back to my place, Ali wondered, "What the hell do I have to do to prove to you guys that I'm different now?"

"You don't have to prove anything to me," I said quietly. I understood completely where Hanna was coming from when she said that Alison could be pretending to be different, but I had a hard time believing it after I read Alison's journal about me. No one was sick enough to write that all made up. Plus, it even made sense why Alison would've said some of the stuff she said to me. She was scared of what she might be feeling, and accepting I knew from first hand that accepting that you might be into girls is a hard process. Everyone deals with it differently. Alison dealt with it by lashing out, like she dealt with other things.

"Maybe not," Ali stated, "but what about the other girls? _Especially_ Hanna. I was horrible to her, maybe even worse than I was to you. I _always_ got down on her for eating so much, and the one time that I pretended to be a caring friend, I showed her how to throw up."

I glanced at Alison to look at her expression. Honestly, she looked distraught.

"How do you apologize for something like that?" she asked, and now it sounded like she was going to cry.

"Well, maybe you can try first just talking to her. You haven't really offered up a simple apology to her since you got back," I pointed out. Ali sighed.

"You're right. I've acknowledged the fact that I was a horrible friend to you guys, but I never told any of the other girls that I was sorry," Alison muttered with a sigh.

"Well, I'd offer to take you back there to apologize, but I think that if you show up to talk to her right now, she'll maybe assault you or something. She's… in a bad place at the moment," I said, frowning.

"Yeah. I'll talk to her tomorrow at school," Ali decided, sighing. "We should watch a movie when we get back to your place."

"Okay," I agreed, my heart rate picking up a little bit. It didn't take long to get back to my house, and when we did, we gave my mother a quick greeting and then headed upstairs. I let Ali pick the movie, and once again, she picked a cheesy romantic movie over the horror movies.

So we flipped off the lights, put on the movie and climbed under my covers to watch. As we laid there, I realized that Ali and I were like six inches apart, and we didn't have to be. She must have been thinking the same thing, because as soon as I reached for her hand, she grabbed it in her own. Then we both simultaneously pulled each other close.

I pulled Alison against me, and she laid her head on my chest to watch the movie. I wondered if she could feel how fast my heart was racing as I ran my fingers through her golden hair. How had this happened? How was I so lucky that Alison actually loved me the way I loved her?

Toward the end of the movie, when the couple onscreen started their oh-so cheesy and predictable kiss, Alison suddenly lifted her head from my chest and pressed her lips to mine. I reflexively kissed her back. I gently prodded at her lips with my tongue, and she parted them to allow it to mesh with hers. I took control of the kiss with my tongue, and gently pushed her to roll off of me so that I was more above her.

As our kiss significantly deepened, I suddenly felt Alison's leg wrap over mine, our thighs touching. My skin burned under her touch as she pulled me on top of her. She dug her fingers into my lower back, and I let my thigh slip in between hers. I brought it up a little so that it was pressing onto her center, and she moaned slightly into my lips.

I knew that this couldn't go on much further, because my mom was right downstairs. She might be alright with me being gay and dating girls, but having sex in the house was totally not allowed in my house. That's why, grudgingly, I pulled myself away from the gorgeous blonde and propped myself up on my shoulder next to her. Both of us had forgotten about the movie playing by now.

Ali's eyes opened, and her pupils were already huge, which made me feel proud of myself. "Damn it," she groaned. "Now I need a cold shower."

I bit my lip as I pictured Alison in the shower, and then I found myself feeling like I needed a cold shower as well. I looked down at my Alison. "I like this," I told her.

A shy smile immediately appeared on her face, and she answered with, "I like this, too." She added, "A lot," in a breathy whisper. I leaned down a little and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

"I like being able to do that," I admitted.

Alison nodded in agreement, and then she curled into me. I smiled as I wrapped her in my arms. Despite the movie still being on, and the fact that it wasn't all that late, I found myself drifting off to sleep.

_AAA_

When I saw that Emily had fallen asleep, I slipped out of her embrace and took a cold shower and got ready for bed. Then, I turned off the TV and crawled back into bed with her. This time, I wrapped my arms around her and fell asleep with ease.

The next morning, I woke up to a light kiss on my lips. My eyes flickered open to meet Emily's, and she smiled at me. "Hi," she whispered.

"Hi," I answered, giggling. I hadn't really giggled at all in years, and it felt almost refreshing to giggle again. "What time is it?"

"Early enough for us to lay in bed a little while," Emily answered. "How late were you up last night?"

"Only about a half an hour longer than you," I answered, smiling. "I took a shower."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. A confused look came over Emily's face, and she carefully climbed out of bed and opened her bedroom door just enough to see who was there. "Oh, hey, Hanna."

My eyes widened, and I debated whether or not to cover myself with the blankets.

"Hey, Em. I just came over because I was up really early because I couldn't sleep well last night and I wanted to say that I'm really sorry for all of the things I said to you yesterday. It's just that I'm stressed out about Ali being back. I don't know how genuine Ali is being, but it's not my business to butt into whatever you two have going on," Hanna apologized.

"Don't worry about it, Hanna," Emily insisted. "We were both stressed out."

"So can I hang out here until you leave for school?" Hanna asked, pushing the door open wider. Emily opened her mouth to say something, but Hanna had already seen me laying in Emily's bed. Hanna narrowed her eyes. "Never mind, I'll just go over to Caleb's before school or something."

"Wait! Hanna!" I called, sitting up. "I need to talk to you. Please."

Hanna sighed. "I'm going to start getting ready," Emily said, grabbing some random clothes from her closet and then leaving for her bathroom.

Hanna gave me a look that told me to hurry up and talk before she decided that she didn't feel like listening. "Hanna, I realized that I never apologized to you, or any of you girls, really. I'll talk to Aria and Spencer later, but you're here right now, so…"

"Waiting for the apology," Hanna snapped, sounding like she thought I wouldn't end up actually apologizing.

"I am _so_ sorry for what I did to you. You were always struggling with your weight and at the time, it seemed like it wasn't a big deal if I broke you down for it. I still can't believe that I made you throw up. I was a _terrible_ friend, Hanna, especially to you. If I could do it over again, I never would've said anything bad to you about your weight. I know that sounds empty, because I can't really back it up with anything, but I promise you. There are few things I regret more than hurting you like that," I promised, and I just hoped that she saw that I was being completely genuine and truthful right now.

Hanna crossed her arms and looked me up and down. "Were you in my house yesterday when Emily came to talk to me?"

I swallowed thickly and nodded. "Hanna, I don't blame you for being angry with me and for not trusting me. I probably wouldn't trust myself either if I were in your position. I know that an apology isn't proof of anything, but Hanna, for whatever it's worth, I am sorry."

Hanna wet her lips and nodded. "Okay. Like you said, it isn't proof of anything. I definitely won't be able to trust you for a while, Alison. But I do think that you're sorry about what you did to me. So let's just start there."

I nodded, giving her a soft half smile. "That sounds perfect." I stood up and wrapped her in a hug, and she hugged me back, which made me feel a little relieved.

We pulled apart and she gave me a small smile. Maybe one day, we could be just as close as we once were. Maybe even closer, since I wasn't going to be the bitch I used to be.

My phone beeped behind me, and I went to look at the message.

**From Blocked ID- You better rehearse a better apology speech than that, or I'm going to start plucking away your friends like feathers. And soon, you'll be all alone and unprotected. –A**

I swallowed thickly, wondering what to do about this text. Hanna didn't ask about the text, so I just set my phone back down and pretended as though nothing weird had happened. If I showed that to Hanna, she would probably think that my apology was fake, and it wasn't. That basically narrowed the people I could show the text down to Emily. She was the only one who would understand that I wasn't making up my sorrow.

But I had to do that later, when we were alone.

And suddenly, I felt a lot more isolated. Almost like I had four years ago when A first started to send me messages. I had no one to turn to. Is that was A was trying to do to me right now?

Hanna plopped herself down on Emily's window seat, and I took a shaky breath and headed to the bathroom. I needed to calm down until I could show this to Em.

* * *

**Hmm hmm... :P**

**Likee? Please let me know in a review or a PM! Also, follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back! Also guys, go check out my new Emison fic "Who You Really Are" ! It's an AU fic, but I think you all will like it!**

**I don't have time for chatting... I'm really tired... it's 2:30 AM and i've gotta be up at like 7 or 8 AM lol so I'ma go to bed. Goodnight lovelies, or good morning or good day... lol depending on where ya are :P And please review ^.^**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: So I realized that I may have messed up my time schedule of this story (it's really hard to keep track of what day of the week it is sometimes) and I realized that I think this was supposed to be a Saturday, but since I already posted about another school day in the last chapter, let's just make this Friday and pretend that it all makes perfect sense lol.**

**I know I said I wasn't updating this tonight... but my headache went away and I'm crazy so you know.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

Hanna tagged along with us on our way to school, since she had apparently walked to Emily's from Hanna's or something. That meant that I had to freak out the entire time we were on the way to school. I _needed_ to show this text to someone before I chickened out of it.

When we got to school, Hanna said a quick goodbye to each of us, and we were finally alone. "Em," I said quickly, grabbing her wrist to keep her from heading inside. "I have to show you something."

She gave me a concerned look, her eyebrows knitting together like every other time she was worried about something. I quickly took out my phone and opened the text from A. I handed it to Em, wringing my hands together as she read it.

"Unprotected…" Emily sounded like she was almost reading the word to herself. I bit my lip, finding myself feel even more scared now. "Alison…"

"I don't know if I can show the other girls. What if they think that my apologies are just speeches, like A said? They're not, I swear, but what if they think that they are?" I demanded. "And am I supposed to apologize to Aria and Spencer before or after I show them this?"

"Calm down, Ali," Emily insisted, and I took a deep breath as I took my phone back from her. "We'll tell them at lunch, okay? Don't worry, I'll help you through it, okay?"

I bit my lip nervously, because I wasn't entirely sure what Emily had in mind for my oh so amazing apology, but I nodded. I trusted her, probably a lot more than I should. Emily had never let me down, and I didn't expect her to start doing it now of all times.

Emily took my hand and squeezed it, giving me a reassuring smile. I couldn't help the smile that appeared on my face as some of my worries dropped away and disappeared.

Emily released my hand and started into the school building. I immediately felt cold without the contact. Emily and I hadn't talked about what we were going to do about telling people about us, but honestly, I was sick of hiding. I had hid my feelings from everyone for years, and now that they were open to Emily, why would it matter that they stay hidden from anyone now? The idea honestly made my stomach twist inside of me, but this was a fear that I had to face.

"Ali! Are you coming?" Emily called to me. I blinked, realizing that I was still standing out in front of the school and seeing that most everyone else had gone inside. Emily, of course, was still waiting for me, though.

I hurried to catch up with her, and before she could start walking again, I snatched her hand. She looked down at our clasped hands, and then up at my eyes. I bit my lip shyly, and she smiled at me. I could tell that she was really happy about this, and I was really happy about it, too.

We had to split up when we got inside, though, because we had different lockers and different classes. I was a more than a little disappointed that I couldn't spend the school days with Em all of the time, but at least I seemed to be practically living at her house now.

On my way to lunch later, I was sort of freaking out. I wasn't sure how Emily planned on telling the other girls about my text without them thinking that my apologies were fake. I found myself being the last to the lunch table, probably because I had subconsciously purposely stalled myself.

I sat down next to Emily, and at first, no one said anything. It was almost weird how we didn't talk at all for like a full two minutes, before my phone suddenly beeped. The girls all looked at me, as if assuming the worst. I carefully took out my phone and read the message.

**From Emily- Apologize first, then we'll talk about the text.**

I shifted my gaze up to Emily's expectant look, and I wet my lips, my nerves tying up inside of me and making me utterly terrified of what I was about to do. I looked to my other three best friends sitting across from me. "Guys, I really need to talk to you."

Spencer, Aria and Hanna all exchanged confused glances with one another, and then their eyes rested back on me. I felt Emily take my hand under the table and squeeze it encouragingly.

"I already talked to Hanna this morning, but I realized yesterday… after a particularly light-shedding incident… that I owe you all apologies. I did bad things to all of you years ago, and I still haven't properly apologized for it. I am really ashamed of everything I did to you guys," I admitted. "I know that apologizing doesn't fix everything, but nothing can really be fixed if I haven't even apologized."

"Why aren't you apologizing to Emily? You were probably worst to her," Hanna reminded me.

I glanced at Emily. "I've already apologized to Em, and she knows how sorry I am." I wet my lips nervously again. "The thing is you guys, I was planning on apologizing to all of you today. I even told that to Emily yesterday. But this morning, after I apologized to Hanna…" I bit my lip nervously, and glanced at Emily.

"She got an A text," Emily finished for me. She glanced back at me, and I procured my phone and slid it across the table to my friends.

"I want you guys to know, that wasn't just an apology speech. I really am sorry," I promised my best friends as they read over the A text.

Aria and Spencer exchanged a look that only lasted about half of a second. "Don't worry, Alison," Spencer insisted, "we believe you."

I looked at Hanna, and she shrugged. I sighed, of course she would be the hardest to convince. The text had, after all, come right after I had apologized to her.

"Yeah, like if you weren't sincerely apologizing, you wouldn't have even shown Emily this text," Aria agreed with Spencer.

"I just… I don't want us all to fall apart. Especially right now, when we're all in danger and we all need to be protecting each other," I stated, looking at Hanna pointedly. "A might be threatening me the most, but A has been out for all of us, and I don't want any of us to drift away. A will target whoever feels the most isolated, which is why he or she is trying to isolate me. I'm going to be A's first victim, just like I was last time."

Emily gave me a scared look, and I squeezed her hand as I bit my lip.

"You're right," Spencer agreed with me, taking my attention away from Emily. "We all need to stick together."

We were all quiet for another few seconds, and then Aria asked, "Onto a lighter discussion, do we get to finally hear what exactly is going on between you two after that whole journal thing?"

_EEE_

Alison's blue eyes immediately locked into mine. By some sort of silent consent, we lifted our clasped hands up to the table.

"Aw," Spencer cooed. I caught Alison rolling her eyes, but she couldn't keep a smile off of her face.

I glanced at Hanna, who was just staring at the two of us. After Ali showed them all the A text, Hanna seemed to have just shut down. I would have to talk to her later.

The rest of the day was relatively boring, and I knew that it wouldn't get much better until I got to be with Alison again. It almost felt like before Ali disappeared, when the status of my day depended so extremely on what I got to do with Alison. Only now, I could feel that way without it being weird and clingy.

After school, I was outside the school waiting for Alison, when I saw Hanna storming toward the parking lot. I took in a deep breath and decided to intercept her path.

"Hey," I called as I stepped up in front of her, "we need to talk."

"What about?" Hanna snapped, and I could tell that she and I both knew what this was about.

"Alison has _not_ been rehearsing some apology speech, alright?" I snapped right back at her. "A sent that text that way specifically to try and get Alison alone. And if you're falling for it, you're helping A isolate Alison."

"She was isolated just fine for three years," Hanna reminded me angrily. "What makes her oh so vulnerable now?"

"Come on, Hanna, think about it! There are so many things that make her more vulnerable now. Like maybe, for example, the fact that she is actually trying to be more vulnerable to all of us now," I reminded the blonde, who rolled her eyes upward and shook her head, crossing her arms. That was the look she made when she couldn't believe she was hearing something.

"This morning, I thought that maybe Alison had hope. Now, I'm not so sure," Hanna stated. "And you're welcome to think that everything will be okay if we just stick together, but I think it's almost safer for us to just back up."

"What, and let Ali be killed?" I demanded. "Remember the last time everyone thought Ali had been murdered? A went after us! And after all this time, I'm pretty sure that A is done messing around!"

"Let me know how it all works out for you!" Hanna snapped, sidestepping me and storming past me. I spun around to glare at her as she walked away. I watched her walk all the away to her car. She got in, slamming the car door behind her.

"What happened?" came Alison's voice suddenly from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Ali approaching me.

I sighed and shook my head, looking back at Hanna's car as it pulled out of its parking spot and started driving off. "A happened," I answered.

Alison took my hand. "Come on," she said gently, tugging on my hand a little. I sighed again and let Alison lead me to my own car. "Can we stop by my place on the way to yours? I need to grab some things."

"Sure," I answered, getting into the car.

We got to Alison's place, and I parked my car in her driveway. Once inside, we went upstairs to her room. Ali sighed and looked around the room. "It doesn't feel like mine. It hasn't ever since I got home. It feels just… different."

I raised my eyebrows a little and nodded, because it did. Watching it go from Ali's room, to a half empty abandoned room, to Maya's room, to another half empty abandoned room, and then back to Ali's room was really weird. It couldn't ever feel really the same now. "What did you have to grab?"

Ali went to her vanity desk and retrieved some more makeup. I guessed that she must've run out of something this morning. She slipped the things into her pocket—it wasn't a lot—and then we headed back downstairs.

We didn't rush to leave like usual though. Alison went into the kitchen to write her dad a note, and I followed her protectively. She wasn't going to leave my sight while we were in this place. Not after what I witnessed happening to her last time.

Once she was done, she stuck it on her fridge and looked around the kitchen. "I kind of miss not feeling scared in my own house," Alison admitted. I tried not to laugh at how ridiculously obvious that sounded.

"Yeah, it scares me too," I admitted. "When we're in here, I can't stop thinking about… you know…"

Ali reached out and grabbed my hands. She pulled me toward her, and my eyelids dropped to cover my eyes as my lips touched hers. Her hands left mine so that she could wrap her arms around my waist and pull me against her. I sighed into our kiss at the feeling.

Instinctively, I pressed into the kiss, and Ali took a step back as I did, and I felt her back lightly bump into the edge of the counter. I kissed her harder, biting her lip a bit. Once our tongues were twisting together, I lowered my hands to the backs of her thighs. I gripped them suddenly, and Ali gasped into my mouth as I lifted her up suddenly and seated her on top of the counter.

Her legs immediately wrapped around me as her hands now moved behind my head, tangling into my hair. Our tongues clashed fiercely as our making out heated up even more. Since Ali's legs were wrapped around me, I felt like I could feel the heat radiating from her center.

I wanted so badly to touch her, but I didn't want us to move this along too fast. I needed us to keep things moving at least a little slow.

So I pulled my lips from Alison's, and she and I just stared at each other for a few moments, breathing heavily. "Damn," Alison finally muttered, and I smirked at her. I gave her one more quick kiss, and then helped her off of the counter. I didn't really want to stay inside this house anymore.

* * *

**Whoa whoa Tana, what are you doing leaving us hanging like that? :P**

**Like it? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in a review or a PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**I don't have a lot of time to chat, but I do have a couple of things I want to say.**

**1. You're all amazing.**

**2. I just forgot what I was going to put here...**

**3. Sometimes the email send out saying that this story updating sends out like 6 or 7 hours later then when it actually gets up, so if you follow me on Twitter, you'll see the update at the real time that it comes.**

**4. Check out my new Emison story "Who You Really Are" ! It's AU, but I think you all will really like it!**

**5. Still can't remember what number 2 was supposed to be...**

**6. I REMEMBERED! So, as some of you may know, my completed Emison story "Let Me Love You" has got the most reviews out of any Alison and Emily paired PLL fanfics (aka if you look at all PLL fics and narrow them to Alison and Emily pairing) on the FF site. That makes me like so happy and proud and I love that you all loved that story so much, and I just think it would be super cool if we got this story up past LMLY. Just because, I think this one is better... So, our review goal for this FF is over 327 reviews ;)**

**And yeah it totally doesn't really matter to me if RIMS beats LMLY, I'm just curious to see if it'll happen ya know? Lol...**

**Thank you all for reviewing, by the way! You shoulda seen me this morning, I was smiling so wide reading them all! Love you guys so much! Speaking of that, just a reminder that you are all perfect in unusual ways ;) *starts singing Believe In Me by Demi Lovato* "Everyone's perfect in unusual ways, you see, I just wanna believe in me"**

**Speaking of reviews, 150th reviewer gets a shoutout!**

**Goodnight lovelies! Please review!**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Here's an update lovelies!**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

As we got back to my house, I got a phone call from Aria. "What's up?" I asked as I answered it, and Alison turned to watch my expression as I was on the phone.

"I need you to come with me. I'm going to intercept Melissa and talk to her about the Mona Team of Ali Hates, but I need a getaway car," Aria stated.

"Okay, I can do that, but Ali has to come to, which means that we're going to have to stay out of sight. Melissa will never admit anything if Alison is around," I stated, searching Ali's eyes to figure out what she was thinking as she did the same to me.

"That's fine. Pick me up in a few?" Aria asked.

"Yep, we'll be there," I answered. Aria ended the call and Alison raised an eyebrow. "We have to be Aria's getaway ride. She's going to intercept and talk to Melissa."

Ali raised both of her eyebrows. "I'm sure that will work out well," she said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes playfully and took her hand.

"Come on," I said, walking back toward the front door again.

"I'll go anywhere with you as long as you're holding my hand," Ali said playfully, and I couldn't help the blush that appeared on my cheeks. She squeezed my hand tighter in her own as we walked out of the house. I traced little shapes on the back of her hand, and then I flashed her a smile. Her cheeks were pink like how I imagined mine were too.

We had to release each others hands in order to get into my car, and I immediately missed the lack of contact. I almost felt like grabbing Ali's hand when we got into the car, but I figured that I should probably drive with both hands on the wheel.

I drove us to Aria's place, and she immediately ran out of her house and got into my backseat when we got there. "Okay we need to hurry, here's the address," Aria stated, shoving a piece of paper toward me.

"What time do we have to be there?" I asked, looking at the address. I didn't really recognize the street, so I took out my phone to get directions.

"Like half an hour," Aria answered.

"Drive, I'll get this," Alison insisted, taking the paper from me. Her hand brushed mine at the same time, and it felt like an electric shock. She locked eyes with me and I swore that I saw her beautiful blue ones sparkle. The moment only lasted about a second, and then I started driving while Ali looked for directions to the place on her phone.

"What are you going to say to her?" I asked Aria as I drove out of her neighborhood.

"I'll wing it," Aria answered, sounding nervous.

"Can we set up a phone call so we can hear what's going on?" I asked.

"Uh yeah, sure, but you can't say _anything_," Aria answered. "Or she'll hear."

"Here," Ali said, passing me her phone with the directions to me.

"Thanks," I returned, flashing her a smile before using the phone to find my way to wherever Melissa was going to be. Aria and Alison talked throughout the drive, but I didn't hear most of it as I drove.

When we got there, we parked a little down the road from the building that Melissa was supposed to be coming out from. "What is that place?" Ali questioned, and I shrugged.

"It looks like some kind of office or something," I answered.

"There she comes," Aria said, hopping out of the car and running to intercept Melissa on her way out of the building. As she hurried, my phone started to ring. It was Aria, so I answered it and put it on speaker and put it on mute so that Ali and I could talk without the other end hearing.

We saw Aria slip her phone into her pocket so that the microphone part was sticking outward and it would pick up sound easier.

"Hey, Melissa!" Aria said, approaching the Hastings and slowing her pace. "Didn't think I'd see you in this part of Rosewood."

"Oh, hey Aria," Melissa said quickly and awkwardly. I saw her running her hand through her hair. She looked a little nervous about talking to Aria.

"How are things?" Aria asked.

"She is so screwed," Ali said, looking at me nervously. "Melissa isn't an idiot."

I bit my lip nervously.

We heard Melissa through the phone, "Uh, not bad. How's Spencer? I haven't talked to her much since our parents… you know…"

"She's okay," Aria answered, shrugging. "She hasn't really talked about all of that with us very much."

Melissa let out a disbelieving laugh. "I find that hard to believe. You girls tell each other _everything_."

"It's a touchy topic for her," Aria stated, shrugging. "Hey, by the way, have you talked to Mona lately?"

"Smooth," I muttered sarcastically, and Ali and I met each other's gazes, sharing our concerns.

"Mona? Vanderwaal?" Melissa asked, giving Aria a weird look. "I can't remember the last time I spoke to her."

"Really? Because she mentioned that she talked to you recently when she and you and bunch of others were hanging out," Aria said, giving Melissa a questioning look.

"That was clever," Ali stated, and we both listened carefully for what Melissa was going to say next.

"Mona said that?" Melissa asked, sounding completely bewildered that Mona would say that, which was a good sign. "I uh, don't know what she was talking about."

"You don't?" Aria asked. "Okay. Mona tells lots of lies anyway, she was probably just messing with me. So I know you said that you haven't talked to Spencer much, but you have been in the house right? Like, your parents' house?"

"It's more like my mom's house now," Melissa answered, glancing around a little nervously. "Yeah I've been in there recently I guess. You know, I kind of have to be somewhere."

"Please, I only need to steal another second of your time," Aria argued. "Have you seen Ali much lately?"

"No," Melissa answered firmly.

"Well, she stayed at Spencer's a few times, you probably saw her stuff around, right? Maybe like her purse," Aria suggested.

"I wasn't in the house when Alison was in the house," Melissa dismissed quickly, clearly uncomfortable.

"Okay, well what about after she and Spencer left the other night?" Aria snapped. Melissa tried to sidestep her, but Aria anticipated the move and stepped with her. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about," Melissa snapped, her voice hushed now. "But if you know what's good for you, you'll get lost." The taller girl stepped around Aria now and stormed toward her car.

Aria barely waited half a second before heading back toward us. She ended the phone call as she got back in the car with us. "You get all that?" Aria asked us.

"Yep," I answered.

"Follow her!" Ali said suddenly, pointing to Melissa's fleeing car. I quickly pulled out of park and drove after the car.

"Why are we following her?" Aria demanded.

"Did you see her face when you told her that Mona said she was talking to her? Trust me, the first thing that bitch is going to do is find Mona and ask her what the hell is wrong with her. And then we'll have our proof," Alison stated.

We followed her through Rosewood and sure enough, she stopped at Mona's house. I voiced my thoughts, "So she's definitely part of Mona's team, like Paige said."

We saw Mona open the front door and let Melissa inside, and that was that. "We still don't know if she took your stuff, though," Aria muttered to Ali, who sighed.

"This wasn't particularly useful," Alison muttered.

"We better go before they realize that we're here," I said, driving past Mona's house and back in the direction of Aria's. "Want me to drop you off at your place, Aria?"

"Yeah, thanks," she answered, nodding. A few minutes later, Aria was heading back into her house and I was alone with Alison once again.

"Let's go back to your place," Ali said, before I could say anything. "I'm a little worn out now."

"Do you think that Melissa is the one who took the journals?" I asked quietly as I drove back to my house.

"I don't know," Ali answered, shrugging. "I don't know how Mona would've known about it, though. She could've stolen that stuff a long time ago. And she probably would've broken into it, you know? Like, why go through all the trouble of getting the key from Spencer's?"

"So you don't think it was Mona? Do you think it was someone else… like I mean, that A is someone else?" I wondered.

Ali leaned back in the seat. "What if it wasn't A?"

My eyebrows furrowed a little bit. "Who would it be if it wasn't A or Mona's team?"

I glanced at the blonde, who seemed to be thinking really hard. She sighed finally, as we were pulling into my driveway. "I don't know. Here's the thing, Em." She stopped me from getting out of the car, and I gave her a concerned look as I looked at her over the center console. "Hanna was there when I got that journal out of my drawer. And she saw me get the key from a picture frame and stick it in my purse."

"Are you saying that you think Hanna took your journals?" I asked. Ali shrugged.

"She's really mad at me, Em. She doesn't know whether or not she can trust me. What better way to find out than to read my thoughts straight out of where I wrote them?" Ali asked pointedly, frowning.

_AAA_

"Do you think she's going to read the one you wrote about me?" Emily asked, her voice quiet. I shrugged in response. "Do you want her to read that?"

"I didn't want anyone to read that," I stated, shrugging. "Aria saw a couple of the things in there before I gave it to you. Anyway, when I gave it to you, it was sort of like… for your eyes only, you know?"

Emily frowned, and I saw the gears turning in her head. "Should we call Hanna?"

"How well do you think that will go over?" I countered, sighing. "She's pissed off at both of us, Em."

"We could get Spencer or Aria to do it," Emily suggested, and I shook my head.

"If Hanna gets pissed off at all of us, then she's going to be A's next target. I don't want to take that risk. Let her just stay mad at us," I insisted.

"I could just try and talk to her about the journal," Emily tried again.

I sighed. "It gives me a bad feeling to think of Hanna reading that, but if she was ever my friend, then she won't read the whole thing. It'll be fine. I'd rather Hanna have those things than Mona or A."

"So you're pretty sure that Hanna has them?" Emily asked.

I shrugged. "Em, she was the only one who knew." Emily nodded that she understood, and then we both got out of her car.

As we walked into her house, I turned to her and suggested sexily, "We should pick up where we left off."

Emily smirked, and took my hands, giving me a lingering kiss on the lips, but she pulled away to say, "We can't, not with my mom here. That would not go over well." I pouted at the dark haired girl, who rolled her eyes playfully at me and pulled me into her kitchen. "Wanna eat something?"

I smirked at the question and avoided the inappropriate answer, in case her mom was lingering somewhere, and answered with, "I could eat."

We had a quick dinner that was pretty much just ham and cheese sandwiches, and then we went upstairs to Emily's room. She immediately collapsed onto her bed when we walked in, and I chuckled at her.

"Tired?" I asked. Emily shrugged in response, reaching her arms out toward me as if telling me to come and lay with her. I didn't hesitate to comply, going over to the bed and laying down next to her. I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at her.

She smiled up at me and lifted a hand to gently brush some of my hair from my face. I felt my face turn pink, something I still wasn't used to, even though it seemed to be happening more and more lately. "Can I ask you something?" she asked me. I nodded, not trusting my voice. "Are we like… girlfriends?"

My breath caught in my throat, and though I knew exactly what I wanted to say, the word didn't want to come out. Emily looked at me expectantly, and finally, I forced myself out of this frozen state I was in. "If you want to be my girlfriend, I would honored to be yours," I told her, my voice coming out sounding cheesy. I leaned down to place a soft kiss against her lips, and she immediately moved her lips against mine. I loved that. I loved that even after all I'd put her through, she could still love me when I finally came around.

When I pulled back up, she was smiling at me. "Good," she whispered, before wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me toward her for a deeper kiss. As I positioned myself on top of her, it was completely by accident that my thigh slipped in between Emily's, eliciting a moan from her. I felt suddenly really proud that I could get any kind of reaction like that from her, considering my lack of experience in this department.

"Emily?" we heard suddenly, coming from outside Emily's room. I immediately pulled my lips away from hers and rolled off of her, trying not to breathe too obviously heavy as Emily's mom appeared in her doorway. "Oh, hello Alison. Are you two hungry?"

"We already ate," Emily answered. She was now propped up on both of her elbows.

"Okay," her mom said, and then she left the doorway. Emily looked down at me from where she was propped up, and I smiled innocently at her. She rolled her eyes playfully at me and then dropped off of her elbows to wrap her arms around me under the covers. I sighed and melted into the embrace.

"I love you," I whispered, curling into her. "I'm so glad that if I have to go through all of this shit, I have you to protect me."

"Me, too," Emily agreed, stealing a quick kiss from my lips before holding me more tightly. "And I love you too, Ali."

* * *

**I know you are all waiting for some Emison action... and if you are waiting for that, you may be pleased by the next chapter...**

**So please let me know your thoughts in a quick review or PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I will follow you back!**

**So who thinks Hanna took the stuff, and who thinks it was Mona/Melissa? ;)**

**Goodnight lovelies! Please review!**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: This chapter is almost entirely Emison dedicated. I had a great time writing it, and I hope you'll have a great time reading it ;) I'm glad I got something like this in, too, because in the next few chapters after this one are going to get less Emison focused and more PLL focused, ya know?**

**SHOUTOUT TO MY 150TH REVIEWER YAY! It was... badadadadada... user mb168 ! Thank you for your reviews! Also, thank you ALL for your reviews! And lol, to the guest who said they wanted wanky Emison, you may be pleased by this ;)**

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**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Emily, can I talk to you?" my mom asked me as I came out of my bathroom the next morning. It was Saturday, so I hadn't woken Ali yet, but I didn't want to leave her alone too long, or she might wake up alone.

"Uh, yeah, what are you doing up so early?" I asked her, and she just shrugged.

"I just have to ask you," my mom started, "are you and Alison… _together_?"

I nervously wet my lips. "Mom—"

"I'm only asking so that I don't have to guess around. She's been over here multiple nights in a row…" My mom raised her eyebrows, waiting for my response.

"Yes, we are together," I answered, glancing at my room door. "But, mom, we haven't done anything… and we wouldn't ever in the house. She's only staying over here because she's too scared to stay at her own place and the other girls are always so busy."

My mom nodded, taking a deep breath. "Well, she's welcome to stay here as long as you two keep things appropriate. Why, though, is she so scared of her house?"

I searched my mind for an excuse, and the one that came to mind was pretty simple. "Her dad is working a lot lately, and she hates being home alone waiting for him to get back."

She nodded, though something in her face told me that she was still a little suspicious. "Alright. I have to run some errands this morning. I should be back around noon, or maybe a little later."

"Okay," I answered. "See you later."

I quickly retreated back to my room and as I closed the door behind me, Ali rolled over in the bed, looking like she was starting to wake up. I quickly went back over to the bed and slipped under the covers again.

Ali was awake in just a few more seconds. "Where did you go?" she asked, her voice sounding sleepy and adorable.

"Bathroom," I answered. "And I ran into my mother. She knows about us, but she's totally cool. She did lay down the no sex rule, though."

"We haven't even gotten around to that yet," Ali reminded me, chuckling.

"Well, if… or _when _we do… it can't be here," I told her, smiling like a dork at her.

"I always thought it was super cool when your mom started coming around for you," Alison admitted. "I heard some about the whole thing. You know, that's when I was sneaking around Rosewood."

I nodded my understanding. "Didn't you write something about that?"

"I think I did. I was really proud of your mom, but honestly, I was kind of pissed at the whole Paige situation. After she tried to drown you or whatever, I wanted to kill her right then and there," Ali muttered. I frowned slightly, and she blinked, her eyes widening a little bit. "Sorry."

I couldn't help the smile that appeared on my face. There was a time when Ali would never apologize for little things like that. "It's okay," I said, leaning toward her to steal a soft kiss from her lips.

"What was that for?" she asked me playfully, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling.

"No reason," I answered, not able to keep my smile off of my face. When I was with Ali, it was almost like all of the bad things in our lives didn't even really exist. Like it was just me and Alison all the time.

"So, is your mom still lurking around?" Ali asked, scooting even closer to me.

"Nope, she's gone until noon," I answered. "Errands."

"So I don't have to worry about doing this?" Ali asked, before closing the distance between us completely with her lips. The kiss was fierce and hard, and Ali was dominating it with her tongue and teeth. Alison got on top of me, her hands finding the bottom of my tank top and pulling on it. Despite the ferocity of our kiss, I was surprised at how gently she tugged on my shirt.

My hands covered hers, and I helped her pull my shirt up toward where our lips were joined. We separated for an instant to pull the tank top off of me. Before she make any comments on my bare chest, I found the bottom hem of her tank top and pulled it up and over her head.

Now, we were both shirtless, and my heart was beating so hard. I'd seen Alison without a shirt before, in the locker room before she disappeared for example. It was different now, though, because she wasn't stripping naked to mess with me anymore. She wanted to be closer to me, like how I wanted to be closer to her.

I pulled her down on top of me again, our lips meeting in a softer kiss now. Ali's breasts brushed against mine, and my nipples hardened instantly. I let out a sigh into her mouth, and my hands moved to touch Ali's chest. She moaned into my lips as I did, and I massaged them carefully in my hands.

Alison's lips suddenly disconnected from mine, and for a moment, my mind questioned it. Then I felt her lips connect instead with my neck, and my eyes practically rolled backwards into my head. I tilted my head back to give her better access, and I moaned at the feeling of her lips and teeth and tongue against my skin.

At first, my thoughts were unable to stray from Ali, but then I realized that even though my mom wasn't home, I should probably still obey her rules. Her no sex rule was obviously set, but she had also stated to keep things appropriate, and this probably wasn't appropriate to her standards.

I finally said, in almost a moaning sort of way, "We should probably stop."

"Probably," Ali agreed, whispering the word hotly against my skin. I thought for a moment that she was going to continue to suck on my skin, despite what I said, but then she pulled herself off of me and collapsed next to me instead, breathing as heavily as I was.

I sighed, grabbing for Ali's hand. "It's getting harder and harder to stop," I groaned.

"Maybe we shouldn't stop next time," Ali said quietly.

"Well as long as we're here…" I trailed off, but I knew that Ali understood that I didn't want to betray my mom's trust in me. The old Alison would probably have made fun of me for having a stick up my butt and being a goody two shoes, but _my_ Alison wasn't, and that made me feel elated.

Ali turned on her side to face me, and I turned my head to meet her eyes. "So let's not be here," she whispered, quirking up an eyebrow. "It's Saturday, can't we go somewhere alone?"

I bit my lip, thinking about the idea. Sure, Ali and I had been spending the nights together, but we hadn't had any real alone time. Especially not alone time to do _those_ things that Ali probably wanted to do. And that I wanted to do, so badly. "Where should we go?" I gave in, smiling slyly at her. It wasn't like it took a lot of effort to get me to give into getting away with my girlfriend. _Damn, it sounds good thinking the word girlfriend in regards to Ali._

"I don't know," Ali answered, and I saw her thinking expression cover her face. "Motels are gross, we can't go to one of those."

I smirked. No, I didn't want my first time with Ali to be at a motel either. That was just trashy. "Spencer might lend us her lake house. I don't know if that's the best idea, though. It's a few hours away, and… you know… A…"

Ali sighed, letting herself fall off of her elbow and back against her pillow. "I hate this. I feel like I can't move without doing something wrong that's going to get A to come after me, with his or her own scarf this time."

I squeezed her hand in my own. "You know, if your dad is working, we could always just go to your house."

Ali turned her head to meet my eyes, and she raised her eyebrows. "I hadn't even though of that."

"If you don't want to go there, I completely understand, though," I added quickly.

Alison grinned. "I'll have you there to protect me, won't I?"

"Yes, yes you will," I agreed, smirking at her. "When do you want to go?"

"Let's stay here until your mom gets back, that way we will know for sure that my dad is gone before we go there," Ali suggested. I nodded in agreement. Suddenly, Ali's gaze dropped down to our entwined hands. "What are you doing?"

I glanced down at our hands and realized that I'd been tracing little hearts over the back of her hand. I stopped. "Sorry."

"No, you don't have to stop. It feels good," Ali admitted. "I'm just not that used to it yet."

Suddenly, my phone started to ring from the end table behind me. I groaned as I reluctantly let go of Ali's hand to reach for it. I checked the caller ID and, seeing that it was just Spencer, I answered. "We have to have a meeting. All five of us. About Mona and Melissa and stuff.'

"Not today, we don't," I argued, meeting Ali's eyes.

"Why the hell not?" Spencer demanded. "We need to be figuring out about these journals _now_!"

"Look, Spence, we can do this tomorrow," I insisted. "Ali and I are out of order today."

There was a silence on the other end of the line, and I could practically see Spencer raising her eyebrows. "What dirty things do you have planned?" she asked, and now I could picture her wiggling her eyebrows.

I felt my face turn red. "Shut up, Spence! We're just spending the day together, okay?"

"Uh huh," Spencer said unbelievingly. "Fine, tomorrow. Noon, my place. Got it?"

"Got it," I answered, rolling my eyes. "See you."

"Tell Ali I said hey," Spencer added quickly, and then she hung up. I set my phone back on my end table and then laid next to Ali again.

"Spencer says hey," I stated. "And she wonders what dirty things we're going to be doing today."

"You should've told her a bunch of sex positions and freaked her out," Ali suggested, laughing and wiggling her eyebrows, which was so totally sexy.

"What makes you think I'd know a bunch of sex positions?" I asked her, quirking up my right eyebrow at her.

Alison's eyes darkened slightly, and I was honestly surprised to see that. "You know what I told you years ago. The ones who are shy in the streets are _sexy_ in the sheets."

My breathing became labored once she said the word "sexy". "You think I'm sexy?" I asked her, lifting an eyebrow as I tried to breathe normal.

Ali licked over her lips and her eyes dropped to my chest. I had almost forgotten that we still didn't have shirts on, because Ali had drawn the blanket up and over her breasts. I, however, hadn't. Her eyes darkened again, and I suddenly realized that she hadn't had sex in probably four years, and she was probably pretty sexually frustrated now that she was with me. I almost wanted to just take her right now, but we had already decided to wait until we got to her house.

I pulled the covers up over my chest, and Ali's eyes jumped back up to look at mine. She smiled innocently, and I chuckled. "Maybe we should put our shirts back on," I suggested.

"Maybe," she agreed, but made no move to find her shirt. I rolled my eyes playfully at the blonde and felt around the bed for our tanks. I found them and passed one to Ali. We both sat up, letting the blanket uncover our bare chests, and slipped the tanks over our heads and onto our bodies.

Alison sighed as she glanced at my covered body. "This is like not romantic at all, but I cannot wait to have sex with you, Em." I couldn't help but let out a laugh at that, and Ali furrowed her eyebrows at me when I did. "What's so funny?" she tried to growl out the question, but we both knew that at this point, she couldn't really be mean to me.

"On a scale of one to ten," I started playfully, "how excited are you to have sex with me?"

Alison glared at me. "Emily," she groaned, laying back down on the pillow and covering her eyes. I stifled another laugh and leaned over her silently. I held my hand over the fingers on both of her hands, so that she couldn't uncover her eyes. "Em!" she squealed, but I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers before she could get anything else out.

She immediately reciprocated the kiss, clearly not caring that I was keeping her eyes covered. When I pulled my lips from hers, though, she wiggled her fingers and I moved my hand.

Ali looked at me longingly. "My dad is probably gone by now," she commented. I smirked at her. "C'mon, I can't wait any longer."

"You're right, this isn't romantic," I teased.

Alison shot me the best glare that she could muster, standing up, and then she just gave up and rolled her eyes at me. "You know how to have romantic sex right?" Ali asked.

I tried not to choke on my answer. "Uh, I guess?"

It was Ali's turn to smirk at me now. "Good, so it will be romantic."

"Ali, do you even like… know how sex between two girls works?" I asked carefully.

She glanced at me as she looked through her bag of clothes and stuff. "Sure, I _know_ how it works, I guess. I mean… I've never done it." I raised an eyebrow at her, and she met my gaze again and shrugged. "I'm not going to look it up, Em."

I rolled my eyes playfully, because I wasn't expecting her to look it up. "Don't worry about it, it's easy."

Ali's cheeks turned red suddenly, and I was sure that she was picturing the two of us having sex already. If I was being honest, I'd done that plenty of times. It wasn't a new thought to me. As if trying to make it less obvious, she looked up at me again. "Get up! We're going to my place!"

"She's oh so bossy," I teased. Ali just shot me a look, and I tried not to laugh as I got up. I went to my closet to grab an easy change of clothes.

Twenty minutes later, I'd left a note for my mom in the kitchen and Ali and I were pulling up to her house. We didn't see her dad's car around, and we didn't see him when we walked inside either, so we both silently decided that he was gone.

It didn't take us long to lock ourselves in Ali's room and get onto her bed. Alison seemed to decide that we were going to pick up from where we left off, and she removed all of our upper body clothing before I could barely register what was happening. Then her lips were on my neck, and she started moving a bit slower.

I couldn't help the moan that was already slipping out of my mouth as she sucked on my skin, and our breasts mingled carefully in between our bodies. Deciding that this wasn't enough for me, I let my arms slither around her body and gently pull her down pretty much completely on top of me, so that our chests were flush against each other.

My skin was burning now, and I could feel that Ali's was, too. She pulled her lips away from my neck, but I never found out what she had been planning to do, because I flipped us over before she could do anything. Now, my lips were on her skin, only I started straight away with her beautiful breasts.

She moaned, as expected, when my lips closed around her nipple and I sucked on it. Her hands were tangled in my hair already, and her legs were tangled with my legs.

"_Emily_," Ali moaned out. My eyes widened as she moaned my name, and I could no longer wait to please her. If she was already moaning like that, I honestly couldn't wait to see her reaction when I touched her.

It didn't take long to dispose of her shorts, and then her underwear, especially since she was helping with it. As soon as I could, I touched my Alison, and she gasped immediately.

I decided on gently sucking the skin on her neck as I slowly pleased her. When she finally climaxed, she let out a sound that made me want to touch her again and again and again.

As Alison came down from her high, I held her and waited for her to say something. I knew that she would say something, too, because I could practically see gears turning in her head. As soon as she was breathing normally, Ali whispered, "Wow."

I smiled, proud of myself. "Wanna give it a go?" I asked her playfully. For a half a second, she messed with me by looking like she was actually considering whether or not to, but then she smirked at me and straddled me suddenly.

Ali spent a surprising amount of time getting to know my body, which actually felt really good. She kissed lightly across my chest and my abs, as well as my neck. In fact, it made me feel really special, actually.

Until she kissed the inside of my thigh, at which point I felt special _and_ very aroused. Her light kisses turned into kisses with tongues involved, and she teased me with the inside of the tops of my thighs at first. Despite me wanting her to touch me already, I definitely enjoyed the teasing.

Finally, Alison touched me. She used her fingers, like I had, and I was very impressed with her first time pleasing a girl. In fact, I was sure that it felt better than any of my first times with any of my other girlfriends. I definitely moaned out Ali's name more than a few times.

After I came, Ali waited expectantly for me to tell her how she'd done for her first time. She stroked my hair as I waited for my breathing to level out, which made me feel tired and want to sleep. As soon as I felt that I could use my voice without it failing, I asked her, "Are you sure that was your first time?"

Alison smiled proudly at me, and then pulled me in for a soft kiss. Our naked bodies tangled together and we laid there, wrapped into pretty much just one person.

We could've laid there all day, and we probably would've, too, if we didn't suddenly hear a noise outside of Ali's room. The blonde immediately jumped up as she heard it. "What was that?" she demanded.

I sat up as well, watching the door carefully. "We locked the door," I stated.

"Dad?" Ali called, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. She didn't just squeeze it once and quickly, though, she was holding on for dear life. "Dad is that you?"

The doorknob suddenly began to jiggle, and Alison gasped, she wrapped her arms around my arm, and I just stared at the door, willing whoever it was to just go away. I felt so exposed right now, and I really didn't want anyone at all to walk in right now.

"Emily," Ali whispered, fear lacing her voice. The doorknob continued to jiggle as I held Alison closer to me, and then it just stopped. We both stared at the door in fear, but it didn't open. We heard footsteps walking away from the entrance to Alison's room and, straining to hear, we managed to hear the front door close as well.

Ali and I exchanged terrified looks.

"Who the hell was that?"

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**"TANA WHY WOULD YOU END A FLUFFY HAPPY CHAPTER WITH SOMETHING LIKE THAT?"**

**So, if you haven't read any of my stories before this one, you now know why I write "M for Mild Sex" in the description of my stories. I've never had sex- actually I've never even had my first kiss yet (depressing I know), so all I know about it is from what everyone in high school knows and what I've learned from FF (gotta love how informative the right M rated fic can be *laughing*). Anyway, smut is hot and all, but I like to stay on the less vulgar side. Anyway, if you HAVE ready any of my stories before this one, you're probably tired of me saying this every time haha...**

**Likee? Lovee? Hate? Let me know in a review or a PM :D Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**So, I think we're pretty evenly split between thinking that Mona's Team took Ali's journals and Hanna taking them. You'll find out in the next chapter... ;)**

**Did you all enjoy the PLL episode? I liked the intensity, trust me, but the episodes are feeling shorter lately :( Also, WHO THE HECK WAS THAT GUY AT THE END?! Bleh. Yeah, I also LOVED the Chasing Life episode. GRENNA FTW! I was so happy that Brenna picked Greer over Kuran or however the hell you spell that guy's name. He was like so insensitive at the beginning of ep and throughout the whole scene where he was making Brenna pick between him and Greer, I was like "C'MON BRENNA YOU KNOW YOU WANT GREER!" Yay for lesbian relationships in modern TV shows!**

**Haha... If you haven't noticed, I'm a total fangirl.**

**Goodnight my lovelies! Please review =D (Btw, WYRA update incoming in a few minutes too)**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Something in this chapter may come as a surprise to some of you... :P**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Well are you two alright?" Aria's voice demanded from the other end of the line. Ali and I exchanged looks that confirmed to both of us that neither of us were alright.

"We're too scared to leave her room," I answered. We'd both put on clothes since the incident, and even though we should just be laying together and feeling elated after what we just did, we were sitting here hoping that whoever had been trying to get in was now gone.

"Do you want me to come and get you guys?" Aria asked. "Just to make sure they're not like standing outside Ali's door or something."

"Yes, please," Ali piped up, and I locked gazes with her. She looked absolutely terrified, and seeing her like that made my face twist up into a pained expression. Seeing Ali scared made me want to protect her, but I didn't know how to protect her right now, and it was killing me.

"Okay, I'll be there in a few," Aria said, and then the line ended.

Ali looked at me with concern. "Are you okay?" I wet my lips and shook my head.

"I just wish that there was some way we could stop this," I said, aware that my voice sounded defeated. "I'm just so scared. And it _sucks_ seeing you scared and knowing that I can't do anything about it."

Ali reached for my hands and squeezed them, she pulled me back down against the pillows on her bed, so that we could lay next to each other. "Do you think A has cameras planted around this room?" Ali smirked as she quirked up an eyebrow.

My cheeks flushed red. "That bitch will probably watch what we just did over and over," I joked, wiggling my eyebrows.

"Too bad we can't contact A and ask for a copy," Ali teased, smiling at me. I couldn't help but smile back at her. She had always had that over me. I couldn't _not_ smile at her.

"We'll have plenty of times to get our own," I said, raising an eyebrow at the blonde. Ali's cheeks turned pink, and I stole a kiss from her while she was still recovering from what I said.

We just laid there and held each other until we heard a knock on the door. "Hey, guys, it's me!" came Aria's voice. "It doesn't look like anyone's here."

We hopped off of Ali's bed and hurried to unlock the door. "Hey," I greeted as soon as I saw Aria's face.

"Hey," Aria returned, glancing between me and Alison. We hadn't really elaborated on what we'd been doing here, but I was pretty sure that Aria knew. I cleared my throat awkwardly, running my hand through my hair. "So, yeah, I didn't see anyone here."

We walked downstairs, Alison clinging onto my arm the whole time as if she thought A would pop out with a yellow scarf. "Thanks for coming, Aria," I said once we'd left that stupid house.

"Yeah, you were the only one who picked up," Ali agreed, still clinging to me even though we'd left her house. I didn't really mind it, though, so I didn't stop her from holding onto my arm.

"Don't worry about it, guys," Aria insisted. "I would've been just as terrified too."

"Doubt it," Ali muttered, and Aria and I both gave her confused looks. Ali just shrugged, and Aria looked between us suspiciously.

"Well, I have to get home. Are you guys going to be okay until tomorrow?" Aria asked.

"We'll be fine. See you tomorrow," I said, and Aria nodded in agreement. Then she got in her car and drove off as Alison and I headed for my car. "Why don't you think Aria would've been as scared?"

"We were completely naked, Em," Ali reminded me, and my face flushed. That was true.

"Come on," I said, getting into my car, "I don't think I ever want to come to this place again."

For the rest of the day, I expected me or Alison to get an A text about the earlier incident, but nothing came. It was almost like there was a chance that it hadn't been A in Ali's house earlier.

I tried not to dwell on that, though, because thinking of all the people that could have heard me and Alison getting it on didn't help ease my nerves at all. We had a relatively uneventful day after the incident. We watched movies and cuddled and talked about things that didn't make us feel absolutely terrified.

We fell asleep without really realizing it once it got late, and I woke up at around ten in the morning on Sunday with my legs tangled with Alison's and my hands intertwined with hers. It definitely wasn't by any means an uncomfortable position, though.

I carefully removed my hand from Ali's and brushed a piece of hair out of her face. She stirred slightly, and I just watched her carefully. Finally, her eyes slowly and tiredly flickered open and those beautiful blue irises locked their gaze with mine. "Good morning," she whispered, her voice coming out with a bit of a rasp in it.

"Morning," I returned, smiling at her. Ali pulled me closer to her, so that our noses were practically touching.

"I wish we could lay together like this all the time," Alison whispered to me, and I sighed.

"Me, too," I agreed. "I feel safest when we're laying together."

Suddenly, mine and Ali's phones beeped simultaneously. We exchanged nervous looks as we carefully pulled away from one another to grab our phones. The minute we both looked at our screens, we sighed, relieved. "Spencer," we said at the same time.

**From Spencer- Aria told me what happened to you two yesterday. I'm moving our coffee up an hour! Be at my place at eleven!**

I groaned, looking at the time and realizing that we only had like half an hour to get ready.

"Leave it to Spencer to ruin our morning," Ali muttered, getting up. "I call shower first!"

I just watched her rush out of the room and toward the bathroom, before groaning again and pulling myself up and out of bed.

In half an hour, Ali and I knocked on Spencer's front door, and a few seconds later, Spencer opened it up.

"Hey guys," Spencer greeted us as she let us in. We all started toward the kitchen, where Aria was already sitting at the bar. "We're just waiting for Hanna now."

"Did she say she was coming?" Alison asked, concern lacing her voice. I knew what she was worried about. She still thought that Hanna was the one who had her stuff, and I was still a little suspicious about it, too.

"Yeah," Spencer answered, shrugging. "Are you two okay, by the way? After what happened yesterday…"

"We're… okay," I answered, frowning. "I mean, we're scared, but we haven't gotten the A text we figured we'd get."

"Yeah, we thought that A would follow up his or her walking into my house with some threatening text to make the point come across," Ali expanded, sighing. "But nope. It's almost freaking me out a little more that we haven't heard from A."

"Are we sure that it was A?" Aria asked. "I mean, whoever that was could've just barreled the door down if he wanted to."

Alison shrugged, and then we heard one of Spencer's back doors open. We turned our heads to see Hanna walking in with a slightly larger than usual purse. "Hey," Spencer said. Hanna didn't return it, and I thought she looked a lot more flustered than usual.

Hanna didn't sit down either, and we all watched her with suspicion as she dug around her purse. Suddenly, she procured two journals and a key, tossing them onto the counter. All of our eyes widened at Hanna, but before we could question her, she was talking.

"I can explain," she insisted.

"_Please_ do!" Spencer exclaimed. I glanced at Ali, but she looked the least surprised out of all of us. She'd been right.

"I might have acted all fine and dandy about you being back, Ali, but really, it's been driving me insane. I hate the way I feel about myself when I'm around you. I feel fat again, and I feel like if I do one thing wrong, you're going to jump on me for it," Hanna ranted. "When I took you to your place last week so you could grab that journal, I wasn't really concerned about what was in the other ones. You said that it was just the same stuff pretty much, so it didn't seem like a big deal.

"But when you told Aria and Spencer and me about giving that one journal to Emily and you said what was in it, I realized that if you kept something that important in that drawer, the other ones must've been that important too. I almost thought that maybe you had one for each one of us in there," Hanna admitted.

"Wait a second," Aria interrupted, "it was you who stole Ali's journals?"

"I went to Spencer's house that night, and she and Ali weren't there. But your mom, Spence, let me in. I told her that I had to grab something that I'd let you borrow. I went upstairs and saw Ali's stuff all just sitting there and I remembered that she'd put the key in her purse so I took it.

"Then I went to your house, Ali, and of course no one was there so I just took the journals, the ones with a lot of stuff in them. After that, I went to your house, Em. I wanted to talk to both of you, but I wasn't even sure what I was going to say. I guess by the time I got there, you two were asleep, though, and I used the same excuse I used on Spencer's mom on your mom. So I went up to your room and just grabbed the book," Hanna admitted.

"What the hell, Hanna?" I growled.

"Look, I wanted to see what was in them for myself, okay?" Hanna snapped. "I was okay with you guys thinking it was A until yesterday. I slipped into Ali's house yesterday and I was going to return the journals. Then I was going to slip the key back into your purse or something. The place was silent, so I figured no one was there. I tried to get into your bedroom, Ali, but I heard you say something in there and I freaked out and left."

Ali and I exchanged wary looks. All of that worrying, and it had been Hanna. Ali grabbed the two journals on the counter and opened them. I noticed that neither of them were the one about me. "You read these?" Alison asked.

"Yeah, and you were right, they're almost the same as the other ones," Hanna said, sighing. "I'm really sorry for not believing you, Ali. It's just, after everything, it's really hard to trust you."

"It's okay," Ali insisted, but then she looked back up at Hanna. "What about the other journal?"

Hanna shamefully pulled the last journal from her purse. "I only read a little of it," she promised. "It was the last one that I started to read, and I just skimmed through it. I just… I saw some things that made me realize just how personal this thing was to you. I realized that it was totally stupid for me to have taken it. You wrote it for your eyes, and it was probably hard for you to even give it to Emily. I was a horrible friend for taking it. I'm really sorry."

She handed the journal over to Alison, who took it and set it with the other two, but she didn't open it. "I accept your apology, Han." Ali stood up and wrapped Hanna in a hug. The two blondes held onto each other for a few seconds, and then released one another again.

"I accept yours too," Hanna answered, and Ali smiled. She sat back down next to me and took my hand.

"So…" Aria said, looking around at all of us. "I guess that eliminates what we were here to talk about."

"A might not have these journals," I said, "but he or she still wants to make everyone hate Alison."

Ali sighed. "That's something that we're just going to have to wait for." I nodded, even though I hated not having any control over this horrible situation. I squeezed her hand in my own and sighed. One mystery solved, one even bigger mystery still completely hidden.

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**I know this chapter wasn't totally exciting or anything. The next couple of chapters are mostly focused on the PLL plot instead of the Emison plot, but I will tangle in as much Emison as I can!**

**Please let me know your thoughts in a quick review! Or a PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**Funny story time! So, my sister reads this story, and when I sent her this, she started to read it like any other chapter. But here's the thing, when I sent her chapter 17, she hadn't ever gotten the email. So she thought she must be reading chapter 17, and then she was like "ummm what incident and what they just put on clothes?! what did I misss?" and like she checked the last email she had and realized the numbers were off and I sent her 17 again or wahtever... but like... imagine reading the beginning 18 without having read 17 XD I dunno I just it made me laugh a lot hahahaha XD**

**Have a great day or night lovelies! Please review c:**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Ay ay everyone! So, this story is pretty much like not canon anymore because a lot of the stuff that's been happening in PLL is like impossible to put in here after everything that's happened. But I'm going to do my best and make everything make sense, but I want you all to know now that I'm not necessarily planning the end of this story to be an A reveal or anything. This is an Emison story, and that's what the ending will be based off of. I can't promise it'll be the best ending ever, but when it does come (I don't know when that will be), I ask you all to be kind to me about it... this is my first -A PLL fic, so I'm not used to writing all this specific plot and stuff...**

**Anyway...**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

"Look, Ali, I'm really sorry for ruining your time with Em yesterday. And for everything else," Hanna told me.

"I forgive you but… you didn't like… hear me and Em doing anything in my bedroom right?" I asked. Hanna's eyebrows shot up, like she hadn't realized what Emily and I had been doing in there.

"N-no," Hanna answered, wetting her lips nervously. I let out a breath that I hadn't known I'd been holding and nodded.

"Good," I said.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I tried not to think too much about who A was or what he or she or they were planning for me. I had my journals back, which was good, but A didn't need them to have the power. A always had the power. Always.

I kept the journals with me at all times, which I decided was for the best until I could find a secure place to keep them.

The next day at school, after Emily drove the both of us there, we split up like normal. I headed to my first class, but I was stopped by a suspicious looking Noel Kahn. I hadn't talked to him very much since he had helped me in New York, because I figured the less I talked to him, the less he and I had our loose ends leading to each other. And that was for the best for both of us.

"Hey, Ali," he greeted casually.

I stopped, looking him up and down. "Hi."

"How have you been? I know that there haven't been many leads on the kidnapping thing," Noel said casually. I narrowed my eyes at him. He knew perfectly well that the story about the kidnapping was false, so why was he talking about it like this? What was he getting out of this?

"I'm okay," I answered, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. "My friends are helping me through everything."

"Everything, yeah. Like your mom dying and that Shana girl dying," Noel said, and I found myself glaring at him. What the hell was he up to?

"Yeah," I answered, raising my chin up a little bit to show him that I wasn't scared. "Those things."

"I bet your friend Emily is the one helping you the most, though, right?" Noel wondered. I felt my throat tighten. Why was Noel bringing up me and Emily? Sure, I had trusted Noel with some of my secrets and things, but that didn't mean that I completely trusted him. And I knew that the girls definitely didn't trust him, so I wasn't about to.

"Emily and I are none of your business," I stated, my eyes narrowing again.

"Fine," Noel agreed, nodding. "I just wanted to make sure that you remember that I know things."

"Trust me, I remember," I stated, bitterness in my voice.

Noel smiled that creepy smile, the one that I used to think was actually attractive. "Good. I just wanted to make sure that it hadn't slipped your mind." He stepped around me and started to walk off.

I spun around. "What do you want, Noel?" I snapped.

Noel turned back to me, still smiling. I tried not to shudder at creepy it was. "I told you, I just wanted to remind you." And then he was gone. I shuddered, and headed into my first period.

Wonderfully enough, I had another brilliant surprise waiting for me in my first class. Tanner, that annoying cop. "Hi, Alison," she greeted in an all too chipper voice. I noted that she had a pad of paper and a pen in her hands, and I knew this wasn't going anywhere good. "I was wondering if we could maybe have a little chat before your school day starts?"

"Um, I have class," I said, using my most innocent voice.

"Don't worry, you've been excused," Tanner told me, smiling a smile that made me want to vomit. She walked past me, and I sighed inwardly as I turned and followed her out. Today was going to be just a pleasant day.

Tanner led me to an empty room, and I guessed that she'd already scoped out the place to make sure that it would be empty for her "little chat" with me.

"So, I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions?" Tanner asked, as if I had a choice in the matter.

"What about? My mom?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows and hoping that my expression was pained enough. I may be able to tell the truth around my friends, but one wrong word or expression and my entire story could blow up. That would ruin me and my friends… and Emily. And I couldn't let that happen.

"No, actually," Tanner answered, giving me one of those annoying smiles again. I was starting to wish that people would just stop smiling at me for a little while. "Shana Fring."

I swallowed thickly, hoping that it came off as an emotional thing. "I still can't believe that she's gone."

"It's very tragic," Tanner agreed, but she didn't sound upset. "So, you knew her from your visits to Georgia as a child, right?"

"That's right," I answered, doing my best to sound distant, like I was remembering my old friend. I sort of was, too, but really I was thinking about her standing with that gun pointed at me. That might have been the scariest moment of my life. "We were pretty close."

"You might have heard this, but Shana came to Rosewood for her senior year," Tanner stated. I nodded.

"Yeah, my friends mentioned that," I answered with a nod. "We don't really talk about Shana a lot. It hurts a lot to think about her dying. I haven't even really heard the full story about how she died."

"We don't know the full story," Tanner stated, "which is why this investigation is ongoing."

"Of course," I responded, forcing myself not to bite my lip nervously.

"So, where were you on the night that Shana died in New York?" Tanner wondered.

"I was in Philly, with the girls," I reminded her. "I think I've already said that." I hoped that my voice still sounded innocent like I was trying to force it too. I was really good at sounding mean and bitchy all the time, and doing that now would not allow this to end well.

"Do you remember where in Philly you all were?" Tanner asked me. I furrowed my eyebrows and made a face that was similar to the one that I actually made when I was trying really hard to remember something.

"I… I can't remember," I answered, shaking my head as though I were disappointed with myself. "It was a stressful night."

"Because your friends were trying to convince you that you could come out of hiding? They told you that you would be safe from your kidnapper in Rosewood?" Tanner questioned.

I nodded. "Yeah, something like that. Whatever it was that they said to me, it obviously worked."

Tanner nodded, scribbling some things on her paper. "So, you're absolutely positive that you don't remember exactly where you were in Philly?"

"I don't remember right now," I confirmed. "Maybe it'll come back to me."

"Maybe," Tanner agreed, giving me an overly nice smile that told me that she didn't believe me for a second. "Sorry for pulling you out of class like this. I hope you have a good rest of your day."

My next four classes were horrible, absolutely horrible. I was freaking out the entire time, and I even started tapping uncontrollably at one point, and the girl sitting next to me had to hiss at me to stop. Finally, when lunch came, I got to see my friends.

"Guys," I told them as I sat down with them, shrugging off the fact that I was the only one who didn't have any lunch with me, "we have a problem."

"Already?" Hanna groaned. "I thought that once I was done being the problem, we could all have a break."

I shook my head and frowned. I felt Emily take my hand under the table, which felt nice, but for some reason, it didn't help me feel less stressed out. "Well, first of all, Noel came up to me today determined to remind me that he knows about New York and stuff."

"Why would he need to remind you of that?" Aria demanded.

"Maybe Noel wants to make sure that Ali doesn't just toss him aside now. He knows stuff, so he has insurance," Spencer reasoned. I shrugged, because that wasn't the biggest problem.

"Is there something else, Ali?" Emily asked me, her eyebrows knitting as she gave me a concerned look.

"Tanner came to talk to me today," I told them in a hushed voice. "She wasn't asking about my mom, though. She was asking about _Shana_."

Aria bit her lip nervously. "Ezra said that they called him about Shana yesterday. It looks like they're bringing the investigation completely into Rosewood because she lived here before she died. Before I…"

"Aria," Emily started, "don't think about it."

Aria's eyebrows knit together. "I can't _not_ think about it!"

I sighed. "Anyway, she was asking me about where I was on that night."

"You already told her where you were. Philly. With us," Hanna said, giving me a confused look. I nodded.

"I told her that, and then she asked me where in Philly," I warned.

"What did you tell her?" Spencer hissed.

I shrugged. "Nothing! I told her that I couldn't remember right now because it had been a stressful night for me, because you guys were trying to convince me to come back to Rosewood or whatever."

"So you didn't tell her a specific place?" Aria asked, and I nodded in confirmation.

"We have to figure out where we were, then," Emily said, looking at all of us. "Like, now. Before enough time passes that Ali should've remembered, and before Tanner comes asking us questions."

"So… where were we?" Spencer asked, and we all exchanged nervous looks.

"Okay wait," Hanna said, before anyone could say anything. "What if none of us remember, because none of us know?"

"How could none of us know?" Emily demanded.

"What if we say that Ali was, you know, trying to avoid coming out as alive, and so she was in Philly, right, like not being here. And then she was lost or something, and she finally called or texted us or something, and we drove there. We stopped at the place that Spence left her car, and then we took off. We stuck together, so there wasn't any need for us to know exactly what street we were on, and we tried to find Ali. And we did, and we took the bus back afterward, but we were all too like… frazzled to realize what stop it was that we got on at," Hanna ranted.

"That could work," Spencer said, getting a nod from Aria.

"It could," I agreed, "but we've got to clean it up. If one of us says that I called you and another says I texted you, that could make all of the difference in the world."

"Okay, so, you were afraid that your kidnapper knew where you were, so you bolted to Philly," Emily started.

"We hadn't known you'd left, because we were at the wedding dress thing for your mom, until you called us," Aria expanded.

"No, you can't do that," I argued. "You guys called me that night, and that's something that they could always trace."

"Okay, so we called you, to check up on you. And you were like broken down and scared because you didn't know where you were, just that you were in Philly and you'd walked a long ways from where you got off the bus," Aria corrected.

"And we ditched the thing and took my car to Philly. We abandoned it after a while, because we figured that it would harder to be tracked by your potential kidnapper stalker," Spencer said, shrugging. "And we found you and didn't know where the car was form there, so we got on the nearest bus stop and came back."

I nodded in agreement. "Do we all have that?"

"Yes," they all said in unison. I sighed, relieved, and then realized that lunch was drawing to a close. "I'll see you guys later."

We all split up, or so I thought. Emily caught my hand as she caught up with me in the hallway. I immediately slowed my urgent pace as I felt her hand in mine. I looked at her face, and she gave me a soft smile. "It'll be okay," she promised me.

"I'm not so sure," I answered, sighing. "Noel said something about you and me when he talked to me earlier. I don't think that he's A or anything, but the way he mentioned you made me think that if he was A, he would totally be after you just as much as me."

"Yeah well, he's not A," Emily reminded me, squeezing my hand. "We already have so much to worry about."

I nodded in agreement. "I wish I didn't have to come to school," I muttered. "It's so frustrating."

"I know," Emily agreed, squeezing my hand. "I have to go to my locker. I'll see you later."

I flashed her a smiled. "Yeah, you will." I watched her walk away and sighed, thinking about Saturday and wishing that we could've laid together in my bed a little longer on Saturday.

* * *

**I don't remember exactly what the story Ali used for her kidnapping was, but I did watch some YouTube videos to get the main pieces of it. If some of the things I decided they would go with contradict something they actually did say in the show, that's my bad, but let's pretend it works ;P**

**Likeeeee? Please leave me a review with your thoughts, or send me a PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you back!**

**Funfact! WYRA, my Emison AU story that's going, has officially gotten more reviews than this story, even though there's only been 12 chapters of it compared to 19 over here :P Oh well. If you haven't checked it out, do it =)**

**I'll attempt to update WYRA tonight, but I can't make any promises! I was busy all morning, because a couple of my friends that came over for PLL yesterday slept over so we were hanging out this morning :P**

**Have a great day loves! Please review c:**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but in light of recent events on PLL and the fact that I cannot write an A oriented PLL fic without sound assistance from PLL, the next chapter (chapter 21) will be the last chapter of Read Into My Soul. Do not fear, the ending will be good and make sense. As I've said previously, the ending of this story was sound no matter where it was going to be put. I was planning the ending of the story from the beginning, because I knew that I might not be able to keep going after a certain point. I'm sorry I have to do this, but you will still like the ending :) Anyway, we have two chapters left!**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**PLEASE enjoy, favorite, follow and REVIEW!**

* * *

I was walking out of the school to meet Ali, when suddenly Sydney, who I hadn't talked to since the previous week, approached me. "Hey, Emily! Did someone tell you yet?"

"Tell me what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing over her shoulder at where I saw Ali, waiting for me.

"Your new position!" Sydney exclaimed, grinning. "On the team!"

"I can't get back on the team, Sydney, my shoulder—" I argued, not really wanting to talk about the reason that I couldn't swim anymore, but she shook her head to stop my arguing.

"No, as assistant coach!" she exclaimed, still grinning.

"What?" I asked, probably not sounding as near as excited as she would have expected me to.

"The whole team voted, and you just have to go talk to the head of the athletics department to get it finalized!" Sydney explained. "Aren't you excited?"

I forced a wide smile. It was nice to have some excitement from someone about something, but honestly, it was hard to think about doing anything but dealing with the police and A and helping my friends. And my girlfriend. "That sounds really awesome, Sydney," I told her, nodding and glancing over her shoulder. Alison had, by now, noticed my and was looking over at me expectantly.

"That's it?" Sydney asked, looking disappointed that I didn't seem excited.

"No, that's really great," I told her, smiling again. "I will definitely talk to the head of the department tomorrow, I promise."

Sydney was smiling again. "Great! Okay, well, I have somewhere to be, so I'll catch you tomorrow?"

"Sure," I agreed, nodding. Then we both sidestepped each other and I headed over to Ali. "Hey," I greeted as soon as I was next to her, "sorry."

"What were you two talking about?" she wondered, taking my hand as we started into the parking lot.

"She got the team to vote on me being assistant coach. I just have to talk to the coach about it and I can get the position," I told her, smiling.

"Em! That's amazing!" Ali exclaimed. "You have to take it."

I grinned, now a lot more excited since I was talking about it with Ali instead of Sydney. "I will. I'll have to go in early some days and stay after school some days, though, so you might have to… stay over at some of the other girls' places." I frowned at her.

Her expression fell only a little bit. "Okay." She looked like she was about to say something else, but then my phone rang, and I huffed as I glanced at the caller ID.

"It's Spencer," I told Alison, and then I answered the call. "What's up?"

"Just letting you know that I'm on Melissa's tail right now," Spencer told me. "I was leaving school and I saw her talking to Mona. They must've thought that they were hidden enough, but I saw them. Anyway, now I'm following her. If she's going some place to do Mona's bidding, I'll find out."

"Okay," I said, nodding. "Text us if there's something important."

"Kay," Spencer said, and then she hung up.

Just as I was about to say something to Alison, my phone rang yet again. Ali smirked. "You're just oh so popular today. I'm going to have to compete for your time."

I gave her an apologetic smile and looked down at my phone again. It was Aria, so I quickly answered. "What's up?"

"Can you come over?" Aria asked, her voice sounding shaky. "My mom took me home earlier— things are messed up right now. Apparently, over the weekend, she caught Zach hitting on some girl. They were supposed to get married in like a week!"

"Oh my gosh," I said, raising my eyebrows. Alison gave me a questioning look, and I held up my pointer finger.

"Yeah. She tried to come to school today but after lunch she just felt so horrible and she took a couple of sick days and I came home to take care of her. Now she's asleep in her room and I just don't really want to be alone," Aria ranted.

"Yeah, we'll come over," I agreed. "What about Ezra, though?"

"He's busy," Aria answered. "Thank you."

"No problem," I said. "We'll be there in a few." I hung up, and Ali snatched my phone. I raised my eyebrow at her. "What're you doing?"

"If we're going to hang with Aria, I'm going to at least get you for all of the car ride there," Ali declared, dropping my phone in her purse. I felt a smile appear on my face and we got into my car. "So what happened to Aria?"

"Her mom found Zach—her fiancée—hitting on some girl. I guess they called off the wedding and Aria was home helping her mom, but now her mom is asleep and she said she just doesn't want to be alone," I explained, pulling out of the school parking lot and starting to drive toward Aria's neighborhood.

"Aria's mom has had to go through some crazy shit," Ali commented, sighing, and I nodded in agreement. "Hey, can I tell you something random?"

"Go ahead," I agreed.

"So, I'm not sure if this was ever cleared up, but Mona was never working for me," Alison stated. "Whatever 'Redcoat' she was working for… _that_ was A."

"I guess it's never been assured to us, but we all sort of assumed that I guess," I told Ali, shrugging. "We didn't think that you'd be working with Mona to torment us."

"Actually, you all did consider it at some points," Ali corrected, and I shrugged.

"We had no idea about what had happened to you that night," I reminded her, and she just shrugged, giving me a half smile.

She took my hand in her own—the one that wasn't on the wheel—as I drove us the rest of the way to Aria's. It made me feel calm and relaxed, and I liked that she had that effect on me.

We got to Aria's and I parked my car in her driveway before we went to the door. Aria opened it almost as soon as Ali knocked, and I assumed that she had probably been pacing back and forth in front of the door, waiting for us. "Hey," Ali and I said simultaneously to Aria, who forced a smile.

"Hey. I'm sorry, I'm just really like frazzled right now," Aria apologized, stepping away from the door. Ali and I stepped inside and I closed the door behind us. "My mom didn't tell me anything about what happened with her and Zach until today when I dropped into her classroom during her off period. She was practically falling apart."

Alison frowned. "I'm really sorry, Aria. About Zach."

"I'll be fine, but I'm totally worried about my mom. She thinks that it has to do with her age, and she's thinking as if there's no more chances for her," Aria muttered, shaking her head. "I just can't believe that he would do that to her."

"He doesn't deserve someone like your mom if he's that horrible," Ali insisted, and I nodded in agreement.

"Thanks, guys, for coming. I probably would've drove myself to the point where I was like raging," Aria muttered, shaking her head. "I probably would've gone to the Brew and trashed the place."

Alison's eyebrows shot up. "Without my help? Wow, you've changed," she teased. Aria let out a weak laugh.

"Do you guys want some food or something? We have some cookies and things that were supposed to be for the rehearsal party… I don't think my mom even wants to look at them. Actually, I'm afraid to see what she'll do if she does look at them," Aria admitted, shrugging.

"I could use a cookie," I decided, and we followed Aria into the kitchen.

We tried to change the topic to something less depressing, and something not as dramatic as the police or A. Ali decided to use the topic of me possibly becoming the assistant swim coach, and Aria got all excited like Ali had before. She even assured Ali that she could always come hang out at her place whenever I had practice. Alison seemed to appreciate that.

We were about to head upstairs when my phone suddenly rung from Ali's purse. I had forgotten she had it.

She pulled it out and rolled her eyes, passing it to me. "Spencer, again."

"Maybe she saw Melissa doing something important," I suggested, and then I answered it and put the call on speaker. "What's up, Spence?"

"Okay, so Melissa was just going to the store, which is totally unimportant. But you won't believe what I saw when I drove a little past the store."

"What?" the three of us demanded in sync.

"Okay, so I was a little far away, but I saw Jenna going into an eye doctor place," Spencer announced.

"So?" Ali asked. "Do we even know if she can see or not?"

"Supposedly not, but that's not the weird part," Spencer said, shrugging off the question of whether or not Jenna's eyes were functioning properly. "There was another girl with her. _Another Jenna._"

"That's it, she's finally gone insane," Alison said, clapping her hands down onto the counter.

"No, I'm serious! I only saw their side profiles. Their hair is identical, they were wearing the same glasses!" Spencer exclaimed. "Almost the same outfit, too!"

"And what, you think Jenna is the first person to be successfully cloned?" Aria demanded.

"Look, I don't know. Can one of you guys come down here? I'll send you the address," Spencer said.

"Why do you need someone down there with you?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.

"I need to make sure I catch them! Plus, I don't want to fight against two Jennas!" Spencer exclaimed.

"Well one of them is blind, so it wouldn't be much of a problem," Ali pointed out.

"Could they both be blind?" Aria wondered, glancing at the two of us.

"Seriously, I don't know when they're coming out! One of you get your ass over here!" Spencer demanded.

"I'll go," I announced.

"Hey, if you're going, I'm going," Alison decided. "I'm the reason Jenna hates us anyway."

"I don't want to leave my mom," Aria said, her forehead wrinkling with concern. Ali and I froze, and then Aria shook her head. "I'll leave her a note, and she already has food in the fridge. She'll probably sleep the whole time anyway."

"Great! I'll send you all the address," Spencer said, and then she hung up.

"I swear, if she really did go crazy and it's Jenna with some random person that looks nothing like her…" Ali rolled her eyes, and I playfully rolled mine at her. Aria scribbled out a note for her mom and then left it on the counter.

We decided to take my car, and we immediately headed to the address that Spencer was at.

"There's her car," Aria said, pointing it out. We parallel parked on the other side of the eye doctor place that Spencer wasn't on. That way, whenever Jenna and this mysterious second Jenna came out of the building, we could get her either way she went from there.

Spencer called Ali, who put her on speaker and set up her phone so that we could all hear and talk to Spencer. "They've been in there a little while, so hopefully they'll be out soon."

It was just a few seconds after that that I saw Jenna walking out of the eye doctor place. I braced myself for this second Jenna, but I saw a person that I recognized appear.

"There!" Spencer exclaimed.

Suddenly feeling something like rage build up in me, I opened the car door. "What are you doing, Emily?" Alison asked, but I just closed the door behind me. Sydney had said to me that she didn't know who Jenna was, and now she was suddenly her best friend? What the hell was this.

"Sydney?" I called out, and if Sydney hadn't been wearing those creepy sunglasses, I probably would've seen her eyes widen. She and Jenna froze.

"Oh, hello, Emily," Jenna called out.

"What the hell, Sydney? I thought you didn't know Jenna?" I demanded.

Sydney opened her mouth as if to say something, but Jenna interrupted. "Amazing how you think you know someone, but you don't, huh?" I glared at her, even though she wouldn't be able to see me. I was about to say something to Sydney, but Jenna started to pull her away. "C'mon Syd."

I watched them walk off as Spencer, Aria and Alison rushed over to me. "What the hell?" Ali asked. "Isn't that the girl who got you that swim team assistant coach thing?"

"Yep," I answered, shaking my head. "Come on. I'm done with this."

* * *

**Yeah...**

**Let me know what you all thought in a review or PM! Also, please follow me on Twitter at BrittzandTana ! Tweet me that you read this and I'll follow you BACK =)**

**Gotta goooooo... goodnight lovelies! Please review. :)**


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Last chapter of Read Into My Soul... I'll save all the emotional mushy stuff for the lower A/N **

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!**

**Please review... It would mean lots of me to know how you liked the story. *hearts* c:**

* * *

Emily's phone started to ring loudly again, and she just reached across the bed and shut up the sound. I looked up from my school binder at Emily, who was now looking back down at her homework. I felt horrible, like I couldn't do anything to help her right now. I fiddled with the pen in my hands for a moment, and then her phone started to ring again. Huffing, she shut the whole device off.

"Sydney again?" I asked her in a small voice. Emily just nodded. "Maybe you should let her try to explain."

Emily raised her head and looked at me. "Why? Why should I believe anything that she has to say? If she's known Jenna this whole time, then she probably knew who I was for totally different reasons that I'm a good swimmer."

"Well, completely ignoring her might not be the best approach either. She already knows that you're mad at her," I said softly. Emily looked like she was about to snap, but then she took a deep breath and shook her head.

"I'll probably see her at school tomorrow anyway. Whatever she has to say can wait until then," Emily muttered, and then she looked back down at her homework. Trying not to sigh, I looked down at mine as well. Except, on top of my already completed homework was a blue journal. It was pretty much brand new, and had no words in it. I held my binder up a little bit and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. Truth be told, I didn't want Emily to see what this was.

But not because of the reasons someone might initially think. No, this was something I was going to do _for_ Emily. And it was a surprise.

_Dear Emily,_

_Hi… It's hard to write this, because I keep thinking about you reading it. I know that this time around, reading what I have to say will be a lot easier than the first time. But I'm still a little scared of the thought that you'll be able to know exactly how I'm feeling, like... you'll be reading into my soul. And obviously, I seem to be better at writing my feelings out._

_So Emily. This journal is going to be for you. Not "about" you, but for you._

_I know our lives are crazy right now, because of things that we don't have any control of, but being around you is the only way that I feel like I'm even standing on solid ground. I'm so grateful for everything that you've done for me._

_I really do love you, Em. Just so we can establish that one early on. Right now, you're really upset because of Sydney lying to you. I don't really know how to make you feel better. And it's killing me. Part of me wants to go find that bitch and go off on her for hurting you, but most of me knows that you wouldn't want me to do that. So I won't._

_I hate seeing you get hurt, and as I've learned, lying is one of the things that hurts you most. Maybe you're still nervous that I'll lie again, but I'm working as hard as I can not to. I don't want you to be this upset about me again, ever._

I put down my pen and stared at the words I'd just written. I read them over and over, trying to picture what Emily's face would look like when she read each part. I pictured her smiling, and that made a small smile play on my face.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked me softly.

I looked up from my binder and smiled a little wider. "Just this amazing girl that I like."

She raised an eyebrow, and I closed my binder, setting it next to me. "That you _like_?"

"No one said I was talking about you," I teased, but I was already leaning toward her. Her eyelashes quickly fluttered over her eyes, and I grinned as I saw her face prepare for me kissing her. My own eyes closed as soon as our lips touched gently.

After just a few seconds of our lips being together, her hand slipped around to my back and pulled me toward her. She laid back against her pillow, pulling me on top of her, and I deepened our kiss, sliding my tongue in between her lips.

"Girls?" we heard coming from outside Emily's room. I quickly tore myself off of her and flopped back down next to her, half landing on my binder, just as Emily's mom appeared in the doorway. "I made some pie if you girls want some."

"Thanks, mom. We might come have some in a little while," Emily said, and I could tell that her voice was a little alarmed that her mom almost caught us making out. Her mom smiled at us both and nodded, and I gave her my best grateful smile, and then she left.

"I can close the door, right?" I asked Emily. "So that she can at least knock next time."

Emily quirked an eyebrow up at me, and I took it as a yes. Standing up, I made my way to the door and closed it softly, before hurrying back to her bed. "Did you finish your homework?" Emily asked me as she sat up a little bit.

"Mm, yes," I answered, laying back down next to her and pressing our lips together. She pulled away after a few seconds, though, and I pouted. "What?"

"You were still writing before I said anything," Emily reminded me.

"It wasn't homework," I told her, shaking my head. Emily sighed, and I could tell that the moment had passed, and now she was thinking about how mad she was at Sydney again.

"Emily, Sydney doesn't deserve to be your friend if she's going to betray your trust like that," I insisted. "You are such a kind person. Anyone who would take advantage of that, like I did years ago, doesn't deserve you. I don't even deserve you, Em."

"Yes you do," Emily argued, furrowing her eyebrows. I raised one of my hands to her face, using my thumb to rub over her forehead and remove the crease there. Then I rested my hand on her cheek, and she leaned into it naturally.

"No, I don't," I whispered. "That's why I'm changing, Em. I want to deserve you, because you deserve to be with someone who deserves you."

"That's too many deserves in one sentence," Emily whispered, smiling a small dorky smile. I smiled back at her.

"Em, the point is, Sydney doesn't deserve to be your friend right now, and you don't deserve to feel this bad about it when you didn't do anything wrong. I want you to feel better," I told her weakly, and she finally pulled me into her, and she grabbed my lips with her own.

I deepened the kiss once again, and Emily let out a quiet moan sound as she pulled me back on top of her like before.

_EEE_

"Ali…" I turned my head to look at my girlfriend. She looked back at me with a curious look on her face. We'd been trying to sleep, but I couldn't, and I knew that if I couldn't, neither could Ali.

"What?" she asked me.

"Who do you think A is? Really?" I asked, my voice coming out quiet. I was a little nervous for the answer, but who could blame me?

Ali sighed deeply. "I don't know, Em. I don't know who would want me—us—dead that badly. But honestly… I don't care who it is. I just want he, or she, or _it_ gone."

"Me too," I answered with a sigh. Shaking my head, I tried to think of something, anything, that I could that was not A. "Ali, what were you writing earlier?"

"It's supposed to be a secret," she answered, but the way her voice sounded let me know that it wasn't one of the secrets that got us into trouble. I patiently waited for her to further explain. "But I guess I can tell you now. I'm writing something for you."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You'll see, when it's done," Ali stated, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

"Yeah? When will it be done?" I asked, smiling to myself as I turned my body on the bed to face her. She was facing away from me, so I scooted a little closer to her.

"Whenever everything is done," Ali answered. "Whenever A is gone, and everyone is happy again. Whenever you and I aren't having conversations about who we think is threatening and torturing us."

"Are you scared?"

"I'm always scared," Ali admitted, and I finally wrapped my arms around her, pulling her against my front. I felt her body relax completely. "Except when I'm with you, of course."

"Of course," I whispered, just echoing her. I felt scared, and yet, I didn't. I was scared for everything that could possibly happen to her, to my friends, to me. I was scared of A. But I knew that, somehow, nothing could touch me or Alison, not together. I felt safe with her, when I was just with her. "I don't want you to be scared. Ever."

"I think it's a little too late for that," she whispered, something like defeat clearly in her voice.

I tightened my grip around her only a little as I spoke. "Ali, I won't let anything hurt you. Ever. Not A… not anything. Okay?"

"Okay," she whispered. "I won't let anything hurt you, either, you know?"

"I know." I did know. For once, I really did know that. "I love you, Ali."

"I love you, too, Em."

* * *

**Ending wasn't perfect, just like I said it wouldn't be perfect. I hope it was good though. I had the general ending planned out so I could add it to any chapter, but it fit with this one so well... What I mean is, all of the Ali POV was written before I planned on ending this.. I just added the ending. So like, it fit together relatively well. c:**

**So... now for my mushy ending! ;_;**

**When I wrote my "I Promise" one shot, that was my first Emison since LMLY, and I was sure that I wasn't going to be writing any other Emison for a while... but then this idea just came to me and I went with it, and I was so shocked at the huge response I got from it. It wasn't the biggest response ever, but it blew me away and I thank you all so much for that!**

**Thank you to everyone who read, who favorited, who followed, and who reviewed! Each one of you have made me smile in some way or another! I appreciate that so much!**

**It was an honor to write this story for you, loves! I hope to see you over in the world of AU... aka, WYRA! I see myself writing more AU fics, even after I finish WYRA, but I can't write A and PLL plot without the show (it's just not what I'm good at), so I don't really see myself writing any canon fics for at least a while.**

**Thank you all so much once again. Maybe drop me one last review on this story! Love you all! c:**


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